Chapter 308
I thought Haekyung would tell me not to, but unexpectedly, Im Haekyung stayed still. The only problem was that even the tongue had frozen in place.
I deliberately did not touch the bastard’s tongue. Instead, I pointed the tip of my own tongue and traced along the roof of the mouth.
Perhaps it tickled, because Im Haekyung’s body flinched slightly.
After repeating that several times, I pulled my lips away and saw an odd expression on Im Haekyung’s face.
With the lips glistening with moisture, Im Haekyung stared at me for a long time before slowly narrowing the eyes.
“Were you lovers?”
“With who?”
“Both of them.”
“No.”
As soon as I answered clearly, Im Haekyung’s expression became even stranger.
“Then what kind of relationship was it?”
“Well....”
How was I supposed to explain this?
After thinking for a moment, I answered honestly.
“A relationship where we granted each other what we wanted through mutual agreement?”
“I know that. You probably got things like information or healing Skills. Then what did you give them?”
“Money.”
“Then why did you do things like this?”
“Because they asked me to?”
Im Haekyung frowned slightly around the eyes.
“You formed attachments like that? What do you even call that.... ...attachment through physical affection?”
“Well, it’s not like we deliberately built it up step by step. Living together was already enough for attachment to form. Though I don’t know how it ended up turning into liking me.”
“You’re saying you kissed them because they asked?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t like my body was going to wear down from doing it a few times.
And it wasn’t something that happened all that often either.
Sometimes, when their thoughts drifted off somewhere else, I just used that method to pull them back.
Im Haekyung stared at me quietly and said,
“I didn’t ask.”
“True.”
“.......”
Im Haekyung closed the mouth, turned the head, and firmly wiped the lips against an arm.
Watching that, I said casually,
“Maybe praising people with kisses became a habit?”
“.......”
At that, Im Haekyung’s expression became even stranger than before.
It looked a little dissatisfied.
Or maybe Haekyung simply found the situation absurd.
Well, even I thought it was a little ridiculous that I had suddenly kissed the bastard.
'Did it really become a habit?'
As I silently observed Haekyung’s reaction, the bastard pushed at my shoulder and said,
“Jehyun, we were just having a serious conversation.”
“Yes.”
“And yet....”
“.......”
“If you act like this, it becomes difficult. I don’t form attachments like this... the way you do.”
Well, if Haekyung had been doing this with the older sister listed on the family register, that would definitely be a problem.
Nothing particularly surprising about that.
“I know.”
“How do you know?”
“You don’t seem like the type who kissed Guild Master Song.”
“Don’t say something so obvious.”
What was that?
The bastard was the one who had asked.
I had been standing in front of Im Haekyung, but after lingering around the bed for so long, it started to feel ridiculous, so I sat down on it.
Immediately, Im Haekyung’s gaze followed me.
“I don’t feel very good.”
“Yes.... Why?”
The bastard was surprisingly honest about being in a bad mood.
If the kiss had really been awful, then even if Haekyung tolerated the first one, the bastard could have bitten my tongue during the second.
Instead, Haekyung stayed still and was only now complaining.
'No, maybe it started feeling awful afterward?'
However, the words Im Haekyung finally spoke after staring at me were something entirely different.
“Just now... I was serious.”
“.......”
“I even used up my mana to release your Mental Suppression.”
“You seemed to be sleeping quite comfortably by yourself.”
“Even when you did something as rude as putting suppressor cuffs on me, I didn’t resist. I even overlooked you threatening to gouge out my eye.”
“That’s closer to not being able to do anything. You looked completely caught off guard.”
“Halfway through, I could have if I wanted to.”
“Yes.”
That was true, so I accepted it readily.
I had only meant it as agreement, but perhaps Im Haekyung became irritated, because the bastard narrowed the eyes and asked,
“You’re not doubting me, are you?”
“I genuinely think so. You’re an S-rank, Guild Master. Even if you don’t have attack-type Skills.”
“If we’re being precise, it’s not that I lack Skills that can attack. It’s that I don’t have any that act physically. I can still attack.”
“Yes.... You don’t have any Skills that act physically.”
“.......”
The moment I corrected myself, Im Haekyung’s expression sharpened slightly.
“Take these off.”
“I’m not particularly inclined to do that after provoking you. What if you attack me afterward, Guild Master?”
“.......”
“Do your wrists hurt?”
Instead of tugging on the suppressor cuffs again, I grabbed Haekyung’s wrists and pulled them closer.
The area around the wrists was still red, but it looked better than before.
Whether the bastard had recovered in that short time or not, I had no idea.
“There aren’t any visible injuries.”
“.......”
Im Haekyung looked at me silently for a moment, then returned to the topic that had briefly gone off track.
“...Anyway, the important thing is that I overlooked a lot for you.”
“Yes.”
“And after that, I even talked about what we’ll do going forward, and said I’d cooperate....”
“Yes.”
“We talked about things that only the two of us can talk about. You didn’t understand what that meant?”
I didn’t.
I simply stared blankly at Im Haekyung.
At that, the bastard frowned slightly and said,
“I treated you as someone special, Jehyun. What am I supposed to do if you react like this?”
“Ah.”
So... the reason Haekyung was upset was completely different.
'I was wondering what the hell the bastard was talking about.'
I frowned slightly and answered,
“I only did it because I felt like it.”
“You said praising people with kisses had become a habit. I wasn’t trying to get praised.”
“That was just something I said. It’s not like you did anything worthy of praise, Guild Master.”
“.......”
The more I thought about it, the more absurd it became.
When I started grinning, Im Haekyung narrowed the eyes and asked,
“Why are you laughing?”
“Maybe you’re right about me being addicted to dopamine. Whenever I get a bit of a dopamine rush, I end up reacting like this.”
“Are you an animal?”
I simply ignored the comment and pointed at the restrained hands.
“I’ll take the suppressor cuffs off. How do I do it?”
“.......”
At that, Im Haekyung got up from the bed and walked into the living room.
The bastard opened a drawer in a side cabinet, took out the release device, and removed the suppressor cuffs in an instant.
Just like that, Haekyung was free again.
“You’re pretty good at that on your own.”
I said it almost like a compliment.
Im Haekyung simply stared at me.
Perhaps because we had been arguing for so long, it was already close to morning.
I checked the time and jerked my chin toward the door.
“Could you lend me some clothes? Going outside like this is a little....”
“Take whatever you want.”
At those words, I obediently headed to the dressing room.
After choosing something wearable from Im Haekyung’s wardrobe and changing, I threw the blood-soaked clothes straight into the trash.
“You could wear those again if you washed them.”
“Why bother?”
“What a waste.”
Leaning against the wall and watching me, Im Haekyung spoke in a dissatisfied tone.
I straightened my clothes and glanced at the bastard a beat later.
“Are you going to work immediately today?”
“I have to.”
“Yes. Then I’ll come find you again at work.”
“If you keep going in and out of my office while people are around, you’ll hear some interesting rumors.”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re the one with the problem.”
And honestly, Im Haekyung getting caught up in that kind of inconvenience sounded entertaining.
Chuckling, I added,
“If it gets too troublesome, just erase their memories.”
“It’s already spread through the entire guild.”
“My condolences.”
“Behave yourself. I care a great deal about my reputation.”
“Wouldn’t that be better, though?”
At that, Im Haekyung frowned as though I had just said complete nonsense and tilted the head slightly.
“Better how?”
“Otherwise it’d be even stranger.”
“I don’t want people saying I recruited a Hunter with a bad reputation because of personal feelings.”
“Isn’t that basically true, though?”
Not that kind of personal feelings, of course.
Still, Im Haekyung was the one who had brought me into Haeseong and cut off various escape routes simply because there were things Haekyung wanted to confirm.
“I don’t want to describe it as personal feelings.”
“Well... we just kissed on that bed.”
“.......”
“I’ll be going.”
With that, I left the apartment.
Rather than going straight to the office, it seemed better to stop by home first and bring Do Yehyun with me.
'I wonder if Yehyun waited.'
Do Yehyun wasn’t the type to say something like that casually either.
At that moment, the door opened again and Im Haekyung called out to me.
“Jehyun?”
“.......”
Wondering whether there was something else to say, I turned around and faced the bastard directly.
Im Haekyung had already hidden the earlier displeasure and returned to that usual peculiar expression, lifting the corner of the mouth.
“Don’t forget that I’m the only person capable of granting the favor you’re asking for anyway.”
“.......”
“And don’t forget that your desperation is greater than mine.”
Im Haekyung fell silent for a moment, then added, almost like a farewell,
“See you in a little while.”