CHAPTER 35

Minhee stirred in his lap, sat up, and looked down at him. More precisely, she gazed somewhere around his shoulders, her plump lips moving as if murmuring to herself.

“Umm… It’s getting quite late, so I’m going to head back inside. Good night!”

Before Taejun could react, Minhee’s face descended rapidly, and she pressed her cheek against his, giving him a quick peck on the cheek.

When she pulled away and saw the look on his face, she spun on her heel. She walked out of the study room quickly, almost stumbling. Taejun clenched his fists to avoid grabbing her wrist and dragging her back into his arms.

He felt his body heat up as a tickling sensation that started on his cheeks quickly spread to his entire body.

He furiously searched his mental vocabulary for a way to define this strange feeling.

‘I feel anxious because things don’t go as I want. The limits of patience….Dissatisfaction with desire… ….

Taejun is used to objectifying and emotionally distancing himself from any situation, but since meeting Minhee, he’s become more than a little threateningly aware of the overload on his meager and limited emotional system.

‘All of these unfamiliar feelings are superficial, one-dimensional feelings that can be relieved by having a s*xual relationship with her.’

“Hah…….”

He let out a long sigh.

“Damn it.”

He roughly undid his belt buckle in frustration.

‘Not even a kiss on the lips, just a mere touch on the cheek, and it led to this?’

I had already started to feel a heavy weight from the study room. From the moment Minhee sat on his lap and started drinking cutely, her semi-er*ect p*nis throbbed with blood rushing from one surprise cheek kiss.

Taejun felt a sense of shame and unzipped his pants with rough hands. Then, the sound of palms regularly rubbing against hard flesh echoed in the room with the lights off.

He leaned back on the couch and raised one arm to shield his eyes. Like a slide, the images of Minhee stored in his memory flashed by, one by one.

He gritted his teeth and blew out a ragged breath as his breathing became erratic. Taejun slowly lowered the arm covering his eyes and stared out the window with unfocused eyes.

The night sky was a starless, inky color of unknown depth. The only bright spot was the milky-white moon as it descended, causing a corner to slightly shift.

* * *

“What the hell?”

Miho shrieked. Minhee, with nachos generously topped with guacamole in her mouth, flinched at the sudden shout.

“Miho, why are you yelling like that?! You startled me, and I dropped the guacamole.”

Avoiding Miho’s long gaze, Minhee quickly grabbed the lime-green lump that fell onto the table with a napkin.

“So, have you made a big move on your secret crush? I didn’t think you’d even know how to walk!”

“Eek! What are you saying?! He’s not a secret crush; he’s just a practice partner. If you think about it, Taejun is kind of like a private tutor. It’s just that the subject he teaches is different from mine.”

Minhee, her face instantly flushed red, began to defend her case, and Miho crossed her arms and snorted.

“Ha! You sure made a perfect excuse. Oh, okay, let’s go with that! As you say, the sky is pink and the clouds are cotton candy.”

“That’s good, pink sky, cotton candy clouds! Should I bring out something sweet?”

Ignoring Minhee’s attempt to change the subject, Miho continued with a sharp look.

“Sit down, Seol Minhee. I’m not done yet. By the way, ‘Taejun’?! Since when did you become so affectionate, calling Rose’s uncle by his first name?”

“It’s been a while. Taejun asked me to call him that first.”

Minhee blinked her big, innocent-looking eyes, and the bright yellow nachos jutted out of her mouth. Miho narrowed her eyes and glared at Minhee, then sighed heavily. Taking a swig of her chocolate stout beer, she blurted out.

“Fine. So, why did you suddenly decide to have a s*x partner? Did that guy seduce you first?”

Minhee clapped her hands loudly.

“No, I got drunk and made a scene, talking about how I couldn’t even try dating or s*x with how 

I looked. I wanted someone to practice attracting guys. Ugh, why did I do that? Now that I think about it, I want to disappear into the ground.”

“Ah, alcohol is always the enemy. But why and how did you end up drinking with Rose’s uncle, of all people?”

“Oh, it’s because of the kiss in the gym-“

“Kiss?! You kissed Rose’s uncle??”

Miho’s eyes widened.

“I’m not sure if it was actually…… a kiss or not, it’s more like our lips accidentally touched accidentally, but yeah, there was a moment our tongues touched tho…”

“You used your tongue? Then that’s definitely a kiss!! It’s not an accidental kiss. So, how good is he at kissing? Is he a good practice partner?”

Minhee’s face, which seemed lost in thought for a moment, turned as red as a tomato in just a few seconds.

“I don’t know! I don’t remember.”

“Wow! I always think your complexion is convenient. You can’t lie. So, how far did you progress?”

“There’s nothing to progress! And it wasn’t a romantic kiss between a man and a woman; it was an accident. There’s no way a man like Taejun would be attracted to a woman like me…….”

“If it’s a kiss, it’s a kiss! Oh. You really don’t understand men. How many times have I told you that you’re not unattractive as a woman, it’s just that the ones you’ve met so far have been sh*tty!”

Miho crossed her arms and sighed heavily as she looked at Minhee, who was silently lowering her head and munching on nachos.

“Whew. As long as both of you are adults and the relationship is consensual, there is really no problem whether you are ‘s*x partners’ or ‘flings’. Come to think of it, this is a great opportunity to get rid of that ridiculous complex of yours. Since it’s like this, might as well quickly get rid of that ‘virgin’ label. It’s not as precious as everyone makes it out to be.”

“Oh, I really hate that word ‘virgin.’ I’ve tried it once, okay.”

“Hey, Josh or whatever, I know he lost his ar*usal while doing it. What kind of s*x is that? s*x without org*sm isn’t s*x. By the way, the fact that he stayed er*ect enough to attempt it until the end is remarkable. It’s evidence that you have the magical touch to ar*use even gay men.”

Miho made a funny face and flexed her raised middle finger a few times. Minhee shook her head excitedly and burst out laughing. Oddly enough, Miho’s words, which used to be hurtful in the past, are now sprinkled like sugar, making it bearable.

“Minmin, living without knowing the pl*asure of s*x until you’re twenty-five is a big loss.”

“…Is s*x really that amazing?”

Miho nodded, smiling like a cat who’s just sneaked a fish without its owner knowing.

“Say what you want, but for s*x to be that great, the guy has to be serious about pleasuring the girl. And she has to be actively enjoying it. If this balance is off, it won’t work.”

“I see… I’m curious too. What great s*x is like.”

Miho slammed her palm down on the table, making Minhee jump in surprise.

“There’s a saying that goes ‘strike while the iron is still hot’, so yeah, it’s about time!”

“What is that saying… Where have I heard that before?”

Minhee tapped her forehead with her finger, trying to recall.

“It’s like a clever sentence that people said in the old days, proverb.”

“Ah, right. But why are you talking about hitting the iron while it’s still hot?”

“No, not literally hitting irons… It’s a metaphor for ‘F*ck’.”

Miho made a gesture of putting her thumb and middle fingers in a circular shape, inserting a finger into it.

“Wow, it has that meaning? People in the old days had really naughty proverbs.”

“Minmin, it’s because you came here when you were in elementary school, so you don’t know, but originally, Koreans were people who specialized in debauchery and drinking revelry.”

“Debauchery …? Miho, you came here when you were in middle school, so your vocabulary is different!”

Miho bared her white teeth and nodded with an arrogant expression.

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t go telling me you heard that from me.”

Minhee took a sip of her beer and scrunched her brows together.

“But how do you seduce someone? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do to get him to want to have s*x with me, and even if I somehow manage to pull it off, what if he feels awkward afterward and pretends to go along and then fails as Josh did at the last minute?”

Miho leaned back in her chair, propping her chin with her hand.

“Minmin, guys are easy. Make eye contact, laugh at their not-so-funny jokes, lightly touch him with a bit of ambiguity, and he’ll roughly understand and cross the line first. Their egos are wired differently than ours, so if you do those things, they’ll think you’re into them.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

At Minhee’s suspicious gaze, Miho raised her voice.

“Hey, men don’t think with their brains. No, correction. The brain may do the thinking, but the d*ck does most of the decision-making. And that d*ck is incredibly simple and, what should I say…damn hyper.”

Minhee shook her head, pursing her lips.

“That’s not true. I heard from Luca, his personal assistant, Taejun doesn’t even give a glance to women who openly cling to him trying to seduce him. I saw the weekend nanny get fired for doing it .”