SLC 44

Mok Seongha tapped the side of the bed. Kim Jinkyung was startled and shook his head, but in the end he got caught by the persistent young master and was dragged up onto the bed.

“Buy a bigger bed.”

“A big bed can’t fit in here.”

“Then you should’ve gotten a bigger room.”

“…….”

If this guy had been born back then, he definitely would’ve yelled that people should eat cake if there was no bread.

“From now on, get a bigger room.”

Mok Seongha grumbled as he wrapped his arm around Kim Jinkyung’s neck. Kim Jinkyung barely managed to loosen his arm and carefully asked,

“Um, but did you tell the Chairman that you’re coming here?”

“Of course I told him.”

The reason Mok Seongha had studied in the first place was entirely to persuade his maternal grandfather. Kim Jinkyung knew well who the most important person to him was. He probably wouldn’t have moved without saying anything, but it was still a little surprising that the strict old man had allowed it.

“You managed to get permission.”

“Permission? I got scolded. He asked if I’d lost my mind. He was furious.”

“…….”

As expected.

There was no way he would’ve agreed that easily.

“Why is a dying old man’s voice still so loud?”

Mok Seongha said while fiddling with Kim Jinkyung’s hair. Twirling the slightly curly strands around his fingers, Mok Seongha muttered,

“But I like that.”

The hair bent and moved in the direction his fingers moved. Hair had no nerves. It was only natural that it couldn’t feel anything. Even so, every time Mok Seongha played with his hair, Kim Jinkyung’s toes twitched.

“What…do you like?”

Kim Jinkyung asked as calmly as possible because he didn’t want his trembling to be noticed.

“Yelling at me and getting angry. That’s what makes him feel like a grandfather.”

“…….”

“I hope he yells at me even the day before he dies.”

Mok Seongha said with a smile. Kim Jinkyung couldn’t tell whether he should smile along, so he quietly placed his hand on Mok Seongha’s arm.

“But wouldn’t it be better to get permission before coming out?”

“I did get permission.”

“What did he say?”

“He said to go live however I want and die out there.”

“…That doesn’t really sound like permission.”

“It is. Even if he talks like that, it means he allowed it. That’s why Secretary Kang brought my luggage here.”

As if he had seen Kim Jinkyung’s worry, Mok Seongha continued,

“I told him I needed to stay next to you. I said that was probably how I could learn how not to transform.”

“It’s not certain, though.”

After confirming that Mok Seongha hadn’t changed even after his hair had gotten soaked under the shower, the first thing he did was dry his hair again. After drying it completely, Mok Seongha poured water over his head again without hesitation.

The second time, he still didn’t change. Just as Kim Jinkyung was about to speak in excitement, Secretary Kang turned the full body dryer back on.

‘Let’s do it again.’

This time too, after drying his hair completely, Mok Seongha tried to turn on the shower, but Secretary Kang was faster.

‘Teacher, please step out.’

‘What? …Why?’

‘Just do as I say.’

As Secretary Kang told him, Kim Jinkyung went out of the bathroom. Not long after the sound of the shower started, a large black panther plodded out with a gloomy expression.

The same result happened the third time, after drying the fur completely and going in together with Kim Jinkyung to pour water on him. Mok Seongha changed back into a black panther. The fourth experiment, done without Kim Jinkyung, also resulted in a transformation, and on the fifth time, when Kim Jinkyung went in with him and poured water on him, he didn’t transform.

They repeated it several more times. They came to the conclusion that there was a high probability that if Kim Jinkyung was next to him, he wouldn’t change even if he was soaked.

But this was only a highly plausible hypothesis, not a confirmed fact.

“Out of ten times, I didn’t change seven times. That’s certain enough.”

“But…”

“That’s why I’m trying to practice to fill in the remaining three times.”

“How are you planning to practice?”

Mok Seongha stared at Kim Jinkyung. Even in the darkness, he could feel his gaze.

“Think about when I transformed and how I didn’t transform this time.”

Mok Seongha’s transformation was related to water, and this time was probably….

While Kim Jinkyung hesitated and couldn’t answer, Mok Seongha continued confidently.

“It’s because of you.”

“What?”

“Don’t you remember? That day, when we kissed all night.”

They kissed all night. Of course, they didn’t only kiss, but mostly, they kissed.

“The reason I can get soaked with water and still not transform is because of the kisses I had with you. Because you kiss so fucking well.”

“Who? Me?”

When they first kissed, he was pretty sure their front teeth had bumped several times, making his vision flash. …Was his first kiss with someone else?

“There’s no one in the world who kisses better than you. …Fuck, how much have you been doing it for you to be like that?”

Even though it was praise, he didn’t feel happy.

“I think you’re misunderstanding, but I’m absolutely not good at kissing….”

Mok Seongha gently bit Kim Jinkyung’s lower lip and let go. A wet sound echoed in the darkness.

“…When I kiss you, it feels like my head is going to melt.”

The man licked Kim Jinkyung’s lips.

Mok Seongha stared at the bite mark for a long time, then, for some reason, instead of licking it with his tongue, he had only chewed and licked around it repeatedly. In the end, it was only after Kim Jinkyung begged him to please lick here that Mok Seongha healed it.

“My whole body goes limp, fuck…. It really feels like I’m going crazy.”

That’s the same for me….

“…And you’re saying you’re not good at kissing?”

As he spoke, Mok Seongha gently placed his lips against Kim Jinkyung’s. Kim Jinkyung looked up at him blankly as they touched and then parted.

“Ever since I kissed you, this is all I’ve been thinking about.”

The man’s eyes were staring at Kim Jinkyung’s lips with hunger. Kim Jinkyung’s toes twitched. In the darkness, he felt like he was being pursued by a ferocious beast.

“So maybe that’s why, even when my hair gets completely soaked, I can’t even think about transforming.”

“Is that something decided by thoughts?”

Mok Seongha laughed.

“What do you think is the reason I transform?”

“Water.”

“Why?”

“When it rains, or when your hair gets wet.”

Only after saying it did Kim Jinkyung realize the flaw.

If water were the cause, he should’ve changed even when washing his hands or face. And on rainy days it would make sense for him not to transform indoors where water didn’t touch him. From the start, the situation of a person turning into a panther made no sense, so he hadn’t even been able to think logically about the validity of the trigger.

“I don’t have any memories from before I was five. I don’t remember my parents either.”

It was the first time Kim Jinkyung had heard this.

“As far as I remember, I was always in panther form. But in the childhood photo I took with my parents, I was human.”

“How old were you in that photo?”

“Probably before five? I only saw the photo once, so I’m not sure.”

“Did you lose the photo?”

“No. The Chairman burned it after he found out I’d seen it. My grandfather hates my father to death.”

‘I don’t really remember my parents. I only saw them in a photo. When I was little, they both died instantly at the scene in a traffic accident.’

He remembered what Mok Seongha had said before. Maybe that was why he talked about such a heavy past as if it were someone else’s business. …Because there were no memories.

“My transformation is probably connected to rainy days and my parents. Maybe I went out without an umbrella on a rainy day, got completely soaked, and my parents scolded me.”

Hearing Mok Seongha talk as if it were still someone else’s story made Kim Jinkyung’s heart ache.

“If you asked the Chairman….”

Mok Seongha bit Kim Jinkyung’s cheek and let go. The latter let out a small groan, “Ow.”

“What would I hear? Someone who didn’t even leave behind a single photo related to my father would really talk about things related to him?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through.”

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for. The bad one is the bastard who made eye contact with another family’s only precious daughter and ran off abroad for a lovers’ escape.”

Mok Seongha said while intertwining his fingers with Kim Jinkyung’s hand and fiddling with it.

…I think I’m a bastard too, messing around with someone else’s precious grandson.

“Anyway, when I kiss you, Teacher….”

Mok Seongha kissed him and then pulled away. With his slightly dry lips hovering at a dangerously close distance, he continued,

“…my head really goes blank.”

Just a little, just a tiny bit of movement, and their lips would touch.

“So, prove whether my hypothesis is right by staying next to me.”

“How….”

The lips that had pulled away smacked together again. Mok Seongha’s tongue slid between Kim Jinkyung’s lips.

“Kiss me on rainy days.”

His tongue licked his upper lip and pushed against the lip lining, which was warming up slightly. Kim Jinkyung felt goosebumps run down his skin every time his tongue brushed over the delicate, elastic skin lining that had never been into contact with another person..

“…Kiss me when I wash my hair.”

He was rendered speechless by the childish, spoiled demand combined with stubborn insistence. It would be hard to be physically there with him at all times.

“And after you confirm that the hypothesis is right?”

“For now, that’s enough…. hm?”

Mok Seongha kissed Kim Jinkyung’s cheek, the tip of his nose, and his eye in succession, coaxing him as he spoke,

“I won’t even interfere with your studying.”

Kim Jinkyung’s thoughts were complicated.

If Mok Seongha asked whether he liked it, the answer was obviously yes. Roll forward and it was yes, roll backward and it was yes, an overwhelming yes.

But the main reason he had tried to suppress his feelings reappeared.

“Um, what exactly did you tell the Chairman about that hypothesis?”

What Chairman Choi Dojung wanted was his grandson’s ordinary life. That was why he had pushed blind dates onto his young grandson.

There were cases where Mok Seongha didn’t transform even after getting soaked with water when Kim Jinkyung was with him, but no one knew whether this would become a definite solution. Kim Jinkyung couldn’t feel at ease, wondering whether they were wasting Chairman Choi’s precious remaining time, the old man’s days were already numbered.

“What exactly? That after getting kissed by some fucking promiscuous bastard, I ended up thinking about kissing all the time and stopped transforming?”

“Wha-what are you… I never….”

Kim Jinkyung stammered, his face burning red. Strictly speaking, he was the one who had been kissed. Who was it that had begged with the most handsome face in the world, saying he wanted to do it, that he wanted this!

“I didn’t say that.”

Mok Seongha continued with a laugh.

“Even I don’t go that far. There’s no need to scare an old man who already can barely breathe into passing out.”

“….”

“I just said that I don’t know the reason, but it seems like I don’t transform when I’m next to you, so I want to practice. He saw it with his own eyes, so he didn’t really say anything else about it.”

After confirming that even when his hair was soaked he didn’t change seven out of ten times if Kim Jinkyung was next to him, the first thing Mok Seongha did was grab Kim Jinkyung’s wrist and head to the hospital.

It was his way of solving problems. He charged ahead without hesitation.

“You did well stopping there.”

If he had mentioned kissing, the already frail old man’s blood pressure would’ve risen.

“But I swear, I’m really not good at kissing….”

The man’s lips crashed in with a completely different intensity than before, swallowing Kim Jinkyung’s breath. Their teeth collided, tongues entwined, and saliva he hadn’t managed to swallow spilled between their lips. Even though he knew it wasn’t true, he couldn’t help but feel scared, and Kim Jinkyung opened his mouth and moved his tongue as if flailing for air. That provoked the man’s instincts and fueled his desire.

Kim Jinkyung’s wrist was shackled by Mok Seongha’s large hand. His heated body released a subtle smell of sweat, and a strong pulse pounded between their palms. It was a sensory extravaganza. Like a kaleidoscope, colors appeared and disappeared in his mind.

How much time passed?

“…Hah….”

“Hah…. hah….”

Both of them looked at each other while breathing out like people who had barely made it back onto land. Only their ragged breathing broke the silence of the darkness.

“….See? I’m right.”

Mok Seongha spoke in a hoarse voice, tinged with desire.

“Fuck, you’re the best kisser in the world.”

Kim Jinkyung felt offended, as if his opportunity to speak had been stolen, but he couldn’t say anything. Another deep kiss ensued.

‎

‎

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Surprisingly, Mok Seongha kept his promise.

Except for when it rained or when he washed his hair, he didn’t demand Kim Jinkyung’s time. The problem was that he washed his hair several times a day, and once it started raining, he wouldn’t leave Kim Jinkyung’s side until the rain stopped, clinging to his lips. If there was any consolation, it was that it had only rained once since Mok Seongha moved in.

“Ugh….”

Under the shower, Kim Jinkyung groaned as his body trembled in small shivers. Excited by the sound, Mok Seongha pulled Kim Jinkyung’s waist and pushed his tongue all the way to his throat, stealing his breath. Kim Jinkyung tapped Mok Seongha’s back, signaling him to stop.

But Mok Seongha slid his large hand between the wet clothes and groped Kim Jinkyung’s bare skin.

“…Stop….”

Mok Seongha’s lips swallowed Kim Jinkyung’s words whole. He started rubbing his swollen member against Kim Jinkyung’s wet thigh.

It was starting again.

Kissing Mok Seongha was good. It was so good that he wondered whether he was even allowed to experience something this good in his lifetime. But if someone asked if it was good enough to stand under the shower, getting drenched, kissing for over an hour until morning every day, he couldn’t answer.

And every time they kissed, Mok Seongha….

“Hah….”

A heated moan escaped from Mok Seongha’s lips. His rock hard body drove Kim Jinkyung back against the bathroom wall, grinding his swollen sex against him.

The original plan had been to time the kiss to the moment water fell from the shower. Mok Seongha insisted that they needed to practice while confirming the hypothesis that even when his hair was soaked, he wouldn’t turn into a black panther.

Kim Jinkyung asked whether they couldn’t just do it a few times and confirm the hypothesis. If he did this with Mok Seongha every morning, he felt like his heart wouldn’t survive. But Mok Seongha was firm.

‘It might be nothing to you since you’ve gone around prying open this guy’s lips and that guy’s lips, but it was my first kiss. A precious, once in a lifetime first kiss. If you took it, shouldn’t you take responsibility? Who told you to kiss so skillfully and obscenely? Fuck. Thinking about it now just pisses me off. How many guys have you even kissed…. No. Don’t tell me. The more I think about it, the angrier I get.’

Kim Jinkyung felt so wronged he thought he might pass out. Forget how many guys, it had been his first kiss too, and far from being skilled, at the beginning he hadn’t even known how to breathe properly while kissing, to the point his face had turned pale.

‘I haven’t done it. It-it was my first kiss too.’

It was a grave he had dug himself, so no matter how much misunderstanding he endured, he hadn’t been able to refute it, but this time he absolutely couldn’t stand it.

‘First kiss?’

Yes.

Kim Jinkyung nodded, extremely nervous. Mok Seongha remained silent for a long time.

…Is he going to get angry? He probably will. He’s been deceived all this time. But he couldn’t stand being misunderstood like this….

‘Do you think I’m stupid?’

The pupil at the center of Mok Seongha’s eyes constricted. Kim Jinkyung swallowed dryly. He was angry. He was definitely angry, and he was going to…

Mok Seongha kissed him just like that. Kim Jinkyung felt like he was being devoured, his legs gave out and he staggered, but Mok Seongha grabbed his waist and kissed him again. After rubbing tongues together and sucking at his lips for a long time, Mok Seongha muttered through their parted lips.

‘…Fuck, what do you mean your first time? Someone who can mess a person’s head up with just one kiss.’

Kim Jinkyung couldn’t argue back. Mok Seongha immediately rushed in again and sucked at his lips.

Kim Jinkyung was no different. Just kissing made not only his heart but even his brain feel like it was melting away.

The kisses that had started to prove the hypothesis inevitably headed toward a lewd atmosphere. Since they never ended at kissing and always led all the way to release, Kim Jinkyung began to question the purpose of the morning training they did every day. It wasn’t even just once and done.

“Seongha-ssi, I’m going to be late…. …please.”

Kim Jinkyung clung to Mok Seongha’s arm and begged. He had already released twice, and cloudy semen was running down between his legs like urine.

“…Just a little more.”

Mok Seongha muttered as he kissed Kim Jinkyung’s neck.

“You didn’t transform, so let’s end today’s practice here…. ugh.”

Mok Seongha bit the back of Kim Jinkyung’s neck.

“It hurts.”

When water touched it, an intense pain ran through his body. But Mok Seongha didn’t immediately heal the wound on his nape like before.

“…Seongha-ssi.”

When Kim Jinkyung called his name, he pretended not to notice and kissed Kim Jinkyung’s cheek.

“Here. My neck.”

“Why your neck?”

“There’s a mark.”

“So?”

He sounded genuinely clueless. Once before, Mok Seongha had forgotten to heal the bite mark on Kim Jinkyung’s neck. Kim Jinkyung hadn’t noticed and had gone around like that all day, then came home in a panic and hurriedly stuck his neck out, asking him to heal it.

“Please… heal it.”

“I’ll put medicine on it.”

Mok Seongha talked nonsense while pretending not to know. Kim Jinkyung wanted to cry. He couldn’t understand the intention behind leaving such a clear bite mark in a place that couldn’t be hidden no matter what.

“Seongha-ssi. Hurry….”

Kim Jinkyung grabbed Mok Seongha’s arm and begged again. Mok Seongha wanted a clear answer, and asked what he meant by hurry.

“Here, with your mouth….”

“With my mouth how?”

This damn cat bastard.

Kim Jinkyung closed his eyes and muttered.

“…Please lick it.”

A wide smile appeared on Mok Seongha’s lips. He immediately brought his mouth to Kim Jinkyung’s neck and started licking the bitten spot.

The sensation of his rough tongue licking his neck sent chills over Kim Jinkyung’s body. He tightened his grip on his arm. Mok Seongha’s gaze fell on Kim Jinkyung’s fingers clutching his arm.

“…Fuck.”

No one knew what button had been pressed, but Mok Seongha became even more aroused than before and pounced on Kim Jinkyung.

In the end, Kim Jinkyung couldn’t make it to class that morning.