Chapter 146

Gyeol was bundled up in a beach towel, while Yo Han remained in his wet swimsuit. Gyeol tore his gaze away after it had unconsciously lingered on the sharply defined muscles, then paused.

His appearance was absurd enough, but what he was holding was even more ridiculous.

In one hand, he held an entire bunch of pale-green Shine Muscat grapes.

“...What is that?”

He had actually gone out of his way to bring it all the way into the bathroom with the hot tub.

“Your blood sugar’s low.”

Yo Han answered brazenly, as though there were nothing strange about it.

Admittedly, a bunch of grapes looked more natural in the hands of a Greek statue than a plastic bag did.

But this was not somewhere in Europe. This was the middle of South Korea. No matter how much Yo Han resembled a sculpture, he was still unquestionably human.

And what were the odds that a human being who marched into a bathroom holding a bunch of grapes would look normal?

“Ah.”

Sitting on the edge of the tub, Yo Han plucked off a grape and held it to Gyeol’s lips.

“...I don’t even know where to begin or what exactly I’m supposed to criticize.”

Gyeol muttered as he felt his mind grow slightly hazy.

“Hurry.”

Yo Han pressed the grape firmly against Gyeol’s lips. He was impossibly pushy.

The soft sensation that had touched him in the pool just moments ago contrasted with the firm flesh wrapped in grape skin, making Gyeol feel faintly embarrassed.

“Ah.”

Please.

Suppressing the urge to drag both hands down his face, he slowly parted his lips.

Yo Han slipped one large grape between lips that had grown full after being bitten and sucked for so long.

Crunch.

The skin burst between his teeth, releasing the sweet flesh inside. The grape was so large that juice spilled between Gyeol’s lips.

Yo Han watched him chew with one hand braced on the edge of the tub, then lowered his head. His hand lifted Gyeol’s chin. Just as his refined face drew close, something warm and wet flicked out, licking the juice from Gyeol’s lips and chin.

“......”

Without thinking, Gyeol grabbed both of Yo Han’s wrists.

“Why?”

Yo Han asked with a low laugh.

“...What are you doing?”

“Checking the sweetness.”

“Seriously, stop joking......”

Gyeol wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Yo Han chuckled as he straightened up. Then he fed Gyeol several more grapes in succession and plucked off a few for himself.

In the silence, the occasional slosh of water and the sound of grapes being crushed between teeth rang far too clearly in Gyeol’s ears.

Being in a bathroom with someone else was truly strange. A bathroom was not normally a place one shared with another person. At least, that had always been the case for Gyeol. The only person he had ever shared one with was Yuli, who constantly ran away whenever it was time to shower.

Perhaps that was why things he would never have noticed alone suddenly bothered him.

Why is he sitting there like that? Is he not getting in?

After chewing and swallowing the seventh grape, Gyeol glanced sideways at Yo Han. Misinterpreting the look, Yo Han brought an eighth grape to his lips.

“...I’m done eating.”

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Are you?”

“I asked first, Gyeol.”

Yo Han took the grape he had been pressing firmly against Gyeol’s lips and casually put it into his own mouth. Gyeol watched with a strange feeling, then curled up a little deeper beneath the water.

“I’m not hungry. Don’t people usually stop feeling hungry when they’re in the water?”

“Really? Now that I’ve relaxed, I think I’m getting hungry.”

“Relaxed?”

Yo Han had been tense?

Gyeol echoed the word without thinking, then belatedly realized his mistake.

Damn it. Am I stupid?

Apparently, his guess had not been wrong, because Yo Han smiled at the sight of Gyeol’s face turning red.

“Want me to tell you what I was tense about?”

“No need.”

“You seem like the type who isn’t satisfied unless every single thing is spelled out directly, Gyeol.”

“I absolutely am not.”

Yo Han laughed under his breath as he chewed another grape at Gyeol’s firm denial.

The revelation that Yo Han had been tense caused Gyeol intense cognitive dissonance.

This was a man whose poker face almost never cracked, a man who had carried himself with effortless composure since his debut role.

Tension seemed like something he had discarded before he was even born.

And yet he had been tense because of Gyeol.

Gyeol remembered those impatient hands clutching and stroking the back of his neck and shoulders, and those lips colliding with his in desperate haste. He dropped his head. His hair slid forward, revealing the pale nape of his neck, where patches of red heat bloomed.

...So he was like that because he was nervous too.

In other words, Gyeol had not been the only one.

The unexpected realization formed a hot knot in his chest that seemed to roll around inside him.

“When was your first kiss?”

Then the question dropped over his head and shattered the mood.

What?

“What did you say?”

Gyeol slowly lifted his head, narrowing his eyes as he glared at the handsome man who was still eating grapes with complete ease.

“Your first kiss. When was it?”

“...Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”

“I got curious.”

This really isn’t the moment to be curious about that. Following your bizarre train of thought is exhausting.

Silently objecting, Gyeol tightened his brows into a firm expression.

“I’m not telling you.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to?”

“......Hmm.”

Yo Han pushed two grapes into his mouth at once and looked down at Gyeol, his cheeks moving as he chewed. His face was so small that it was surprising two grapes could fit in his mouth at all.

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“Why do you want to hear it?”

Am I really supposed to tell you that my first kiss was with Jun Shin when I was seventeen? Now, of all times?

“I’m curious. I doubt the people around you ever left you alone.”

He was clearly fixated on the subject. Gyeol had no choice but to redirect the conversation.

“Aren’t you getting in?”

“I am. I finished.”

Yo Han waved the now-bare grape stem.

The bunch had looked fairly large, so the fact that he had eaten it all in such a short time was almost astonishing.

Come to think of it, Yo Han was surprisingly a big eater. Despite his elegance making him look like someone who ate very little, he ate well and ate a lot. He did not seem picky either.

Gyeol remembered one morning when he still could not stand the sight of Yo Han, watching him in the lounge as he casually crunched through an entire raw carrot.

After throwing away the stem, Yo Han returned to the tub. Gyeol shifted toward one end to make it easier for him °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° to enter. The water rippled, sending rose petals drifting this way and that.

They sat at opposite ends of the tub, facing each other.

“Isn’t there a saying somewhere in Asia that a first kiss tastes like lemon?”

“What?”

What the hell is this man talking about?

Had he finally lost his mind? Gyeol had called him a crazy bastard plenty of times, but had he now truly gone completely insane?

Yo Han exhaled a laugh at Gyeol’s horrified reaction and continued.

“I think I saw it in a romance drama or a comic.”

“That only happens because it’s a drama or a comic.”

Had the cameras not been there, Gyeol might have told him to come to his senses.

“That isn’t the point.”

Yo Han swept his hair back out of habit. With his forehead fully exposed, his sharply defined features stood out even more beneath the bathroom’s softly colored lights. He held out a hand to Gyeol.

“The point is what you think a kiss would taste like right now.”

Only then did Gyeol realize that all of Yo Han’s insanity had been leading up to this.

“...No, do we really have to, specifically, right now—”

Gyeol stumbled over his words. His face burned.

Was it because Yo Han had lived abroad? Because he had been acting for so long? Gyeol already knew he was expressive. That quality had undeniably been one of the things Gyeol had admired so much about him.

But once all of it was focused on Gyeol, the situation became entirely different. Especially when Yo Han was pulling out every side of himself he had never shown in the media and pouring it all over him...

It was enough to make Gyeol’s head spin.

“Give me your hand.”

“......”

When Gyeol hesitated, biting his lower lip, Yo Han tilted his head and smiled.

“You don’t want to?”

“Ha......”

Gyeol dropped his uninjured hand into Yo Han’s palm. Yo Han immediately wrapped his fingers around Gyeol’s wrist and pulled.

The bottom of the tub was slippery from the bath salts, and Gyeol slid forward.

Still wrapped in the towel, he landed against Yo Han’s chest and spoke as though grumbling.

“...The cameras are closer here than they were at the pool. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

Yo Han agreed, kissing the top of Gyeol’s head.

Gyeol rubbed the spot and added another unnecessary warning.

“And the microphones will pick up the sound better.”

“Yeah.”

“......”

“......”

Then neither of them spoke.

After a brief silence, Yo Han carefully lifted Gyeol’s chin.

Gyeol let the back of his head rest against Yo Han’s thick forearm. With his head tilted back, he looked up at Yo Han’s face, now only inches away.

“......”

“......”

There was barely any distance between their lips.

“Do you remember the last time we were in here?”

Gyeol could almost feel Yo Han’s shallow breath brushing over his lips.

“...Yes.”

“When I suggested we stop speaking so formally, you refused.”

“To be precise, I think I tried to dodge the question. How could I possibly speak casually to someone so far above me......”

His voice remained steady, but their lips were far too close. It would not have been strange if they touched at any moment.

A dull ache throbbed low in his abdomen.

“Someone so far above you. What a ridiculous thing to say.”

“You are my senior.”

“That never meant much to me before, but it feels a little different when you say it.”

He had barely done anything, yet Gyeol could already feel signs of arousal below the water.

This is driving me insane.

Trying not to reveal how his breath had inexplicably grown short, Gyeol answered.

“How is it different?”

“I wonder.”

“......”

“......”

Gyeol’s toes curled underwater. His grip tightened around the towel.

He did not know anymore.

Dragging things out had never been Gyeol’s way.

“Senior.”

Gyeol lightly touched Yo Han’s lips with the tip of his finger.

“...Aren’t you going to find out what it tastes like?”