SH | Chapter 2.1

“Have you coughed?”

At Seolseol’s cautious call, Donggu struggled to open his eyes. The room was dimly lit. He felt as if he were drunk. His head was numb. His vision was blurry, so Donggu lifted a hand to rub his eyes.

“…!”

The moment he lifted even a hand, his whole body trembled as if vibrating. His back and thighs throbbed as though he had a fever. Everything before his eyes went black, then white, in a frenzy. He barely held back the groan that wanted to spill out. It was instinct, really.

A servant was not supposed to be hurt. If he became useless, he might be rolled up in a mat and beaten to death, or sold off cheaply to Sekwang. They said Sekwang slaves worked like dogs until they coughed up their last breath.

Donggu squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. He gathered every last ounce of strength and tried to sit up. The soft quilt slipped down with a faint rustle.

Donggu froze halfway up. He was naked, not a stitch on him, and was buried in the arms of a naked man.

Over Donggu’s stiff shoulder, long hair that had been loosely undone slid down in a silky cascade.

“…!”

Donggu shot upright as if he had seen a snake. His heart hammered wildly. A picture-perfect man slept gracefully on the mandarin-duck bedding.

“W-what is this!”

It felt as though he might scream. Donggu clapped a hand over his mouth in a hurry. In his widened field of vision, his own legs were sprawled carelessly apart.

White semen had hardened and clung to him here and there. Red and blue bruises, bite marks, and handprints were carved into the insides of both thighs.

Drip.

“Ugh!”

Something he did not even want to think about leaked from his back passage. Sticky and viscous, it seeped out warm every time Donggu flinched.

“…It seems day has already broken.”

Donggu’s eyes rolled slowly. Yoongong, who had been sleeping so peacefully, covered his eyes with a hand and muttered. Maybe because it was early morning, his low, husky voice somehow made Donggu want to drag the night back again.

‘How shameless! What am I even thinking!’

He wanted to tear his hair out. Heat rushed to his face. Last night’s memories began pounding through Donggu’s head.

Yoongong had moved without a scrap of waste. He had been as imposing, swift, and sharp as a tiger in the mountains.

In that hard, agile man’s arms, Donggu had panted without control. He had twisted his waist like a woman and dug in his nails. Donggu had felt shame, and then something even worse than shame.

When Yoongong, reaching absentmindedly to the side, found no Donggu there, he hurriedly got up. One foot was still sticking out beyond the brocade quilt.

When Donggu raised his eyes, he saw himself covering his mouth, naked, while staring wide-eyed in shock.

No matter how Donggu looked, Yoongong only dragged his gaze over him in a sticky sweep. The taut body was covered in traces left by him last night.

Seeing that resilient flesh, thirst rose again. His eyes turned murky as lust surged up.

“Have you coughed?”

“…!”

A cautious voice sounded again from outside the door. Yoongong’s eyes cleared at once. The boiling desire sank away in a flash. Looking at Donggu, who was still frozen as if refusing reality, Yoongong gave a faint smile.

“Wife, you’re awake.”

He called him softly. Donggu only flinched a little, with no other reaction. Yoongong put on his clothes and neatly combed up the loose topknot.

“I’ll go wash up. Wife, you should also wash and tidy yourself with the servants’ help.”

Yoongong’s hand touched Donggu’s chin. Startled enough to make his shoulders jump, Donggu looked up at him. Those dark, grape-black eyes trembled endlessly.

“Are you afraid of showing the marks I left on you? There is no need. No matter what the one they pushed in place of their own daughter does, or says, or how pitifully they behave, the members of this household who were involved in this matter cannot so much as open their mouths to anyone. After all, it was they who started it.”

Yoongong gently stroked Donggu’s chin. His own bride, still frozen stiff, was unbearably lovely. A smile rose naturally to his lips. A sweet smile, one so sweet it seemed to stick to the skin. So sweet that Donggu, stiff with all manner of feelings clinging to him, looked as though he might melt helplessly under it.

“So there is no need to feel ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated, or insulted. Hold your head high before them all. You are the treasured daughter of Golden Jinsa, the mistress of this house, Geum Soyee.”

Soft, damp lips touched Donggu’s rigid mouth.

“Mm… ah… aah!”

A slick tongue parted his lips and slipped inside. It brushed across the roof of his mouth, then coiled with his tongue and tickled the base of it.

Donggu crumbled quickly under Yoongong’s sticky teasing. A groan burst out when Yoongong’s tongue kept prodding at his throat. Without thinking, he gripped Yoongong’s arm tight.

Yoongong’s tongue wandered teasingly through Donggu’s mouth. It swept the roof of his mouth like rippling water and pressed at his tongue again and again, like pinching ants to death with a fingernail. It followed the line of his teeth, sucking up saliva as though drinking the juice from a fruit bitten once.

Donggu could feel their colliding lips swelling little by little. Heat and pain made it feel as if the breath had moved into his lips, every soft motion vivid and real.

Breath by breath, Donggu grew more short of air under Yoongong’s strong, sticky kiss. Just as his mind was about to go blank, Yoongong pulled away as if reluctantly, still nibbling at Donggu’s lips to the very end.

“…Haa, chirp!”

“…ngh, huu, phew!”

The instant Yoongong let go, Donggu let out a rough breath. His pale, drained face flushed. He looked good like that.

Yoongong gently wiped his thumb across Donggu’s lips, now moist with saliva. Then he picked up the red wedding robe, the dangui that had been tossed aside.

Swish.

Breathing hard, Donggu watched Yoongong as the robe was draped lightly over his shoulders. Yoongong smiled gently again.

“Then I will wash first and wait, so do not rush anything. Take your time.”

Donggu clutched the dangui draped over his shoulders tightly. The hand gripping the robe shook like leaves in a winter wind.

The door creaked open.

“Go on in.”

“Yes, sir!”

A subdued voice, typical of someone of low status, sounded from outside. At that sound, the fingers gripping the robe stiffened as if struck.

Soon after, with a creak like footsteps on a wooden veranda, the door opened wider.

“…!”

A startled gasp was swallowed. Seolseol, and the older nanny who had come in with her, froze at the sight before them.

“I’ll help you wash.”

But both of them were middle-aged women who had weathered every hardship in servant life. Because of that, they were able to quickly gather themselves.

Donggu covered his face with one hand. He thought that if a wind would just blow him away and sink him into the sea, that would be best.

He was ashamed. He was mortified.

A man’s body wearing a woman’s wedding clothes to go through a marriage.

A man’s body openly marked as though he had been held like a woman.

“We prepared the bath water, so wash and…”

“Help…”

The two women, trailing off in the same breath, supported Donggu at once as if by prior agreement.

“…Ugh!”

“…!”

White semen dripped from beneath the hem of the dangui. There was no way the two of them did not know exactly what it was. Donggu and the two middle-aged women stood frozen for a moment.

“It will be hard, but I think you’d better wash up quickly…”

Seolseol raised her speech in respect to Donggu, as one might speak to Lady Soyee. Donggu felt utterly miserable.

All night long, Yoongong’s manhood had battered at his belly until it ached in tingling waves. His back would not straighten properly. His thighs and hips, forced open and rubbed raw against Yoongong’s hard body, ached deeply. White semen kept leaking from his back passage.

Donggu clutched his stomach and limped along. The expressions of the two supporting him were complicated. Sympathy and pity. A deep sorrow for having to endure a reality they could not change was etched into their furrows.

They finally reached the bathing tub. Donggu, still with his mouth firmly shut, lowered his legs into the tub where warm steam was rising.

It was absurd and miserable, but his body did feel a little better. He slowly sat down in the water. Once he was in the warm bath, the body that had been stiff and locked up seemed to loosen.

With Seolseol and the older nanny serving him, Donggu wished this was all a dream.

But the pain and the marks left on his body were not a dream. They sharply reminded him to face reality.

So this was why the weather on his wedding day had been so wonderfully beautiful, and yet his feelings had been so bleak.

It was a bitter farewell from the fate that had accompanied Donggu’s life until now.

The road of life we have walked together ends here.

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