Chapter : 10. An Unstable Form
Taejun’s muscles twitched in small ripples as his movements continued.
Their sweat-slicked skin slid against each other.
The sensation felt as though he were filling an empty body completely, and Haeyoung wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing him down as her hips rose and fell in rhythm with his movements.
Dawn light seeped through the gap in the curtains, slowly dyeing the room in pale color.
It was the hour when even the quietest breath seemed to sink into stillness. The entire house remained submerged in the deep silence of early morning.
As the dim light of dawn crept in, Haeyoung was the first to wake.
When consciousness returned, the first thing she felt was the warm body heat gently wrapping around her skin.
The moment she realized how close his breath was, the air beneath the blanket suddenly felt vivid and real.
They were lying side by side without a single thread of clothing on, and beside her, Ki Taejun was sleeping quietly.
Memories of the previous night slowly brushed through her mind.
Everything had been clumsy and reckless, yet at the same time it had felt inevitable. With the haze of alcohol added to it, the night had burned hot without a moment to settle.
All those traces still lingered somewhere inside her body like a faint aftertaste.
As if trying to hide her flushed face, Haeyoung gently pressed her forehead against Taejun’s chest.
It felt strange somehow that the man who always wore perfectly tailored suits and spoke in cold tones could feel so soft and human like this.
Just as she carefully tried to slip her arm out from beneath the blanket—
A firm arm reflexively pressed down on her upper body.
Was he awake? Or was it simply a reflex?
Haeyoung slowly drew in a breath. His eyelids remained still, his face calm.
Just as her heartbeat was beginning to steady again, the peaceful air in the room was shattered by an all-too-familiar voice.
“Haeyoung, are you inside?”
It was Ki Jejun.
That single sentence froze the air in the room instantly.
Haeyoung reflexively pulled the blanket up, and only then did Taejun open his eyes.
Their gazes met quietly.
Neither of them spoke, but a fragile silence settled between them—so tense that even breathing felt dangerous.
“Can I open the door?”
Along with the question, the doorknob rattled.
It didn’t sound like he was truly trying to open it, but the dull noise of his hand gripping the handle made Haeyoung instinctively pull the blanket higher to cover herself.
Her throat felt as dry as sand.
Meanwhile, Taejun simply pushed the blanket aside and slowly sat up.
There was even a hint of composure in his refined movements.
As the blanket slid away from his bare skin, a silence sharper than the dawn air filled the room.
He picked up the shirt that had fallen to the floor and began putting it on.
His hands moved casually.
“…Oppa.”
Haeyoung called out to him, but Taejun didn’t answer. He seemed focused only on fastening the buttons.
“…You’re not seriously planning to walk out like that, are you?”
At her words, Taejun’s hand paused briefly on the last button.
Then he finished fastening it quietly before responding shortly.
“Why? Can’t I?”
He asked the question as though the situation meant nothing to him.
“If you go out now… we’ll get caught. No—he’ll definitely find out. Ki Jejun will know we spent the night together, and then the whole family will find out.”
Haeyoung’s voice dropped even lower and more cautious.
It wasn’t just about being discovered. She was afraid this relationship might be given a name different from what they wanted—something impure, or something unstable.
But in Taejun’s eyes as he looked at her, there was not even a trace of hesitation or inner conflict.
Instead, there was the steady calm of someone who had already made a decision.
“…Are you really leaving?”
Gathering the last of her courage, she asked.
Resting his hand on the edge of the blanket, he replied indifferently.
“Or should we do it one more time? Is that what you want?”
He tossed out the words so lightly that they didn’t even sound like a joke.
Haeyoung’s shoulders, stiff with tension, slowly relaxed.
It was absurd—and somehow that made her feel relieved.
“I locked the door.”
He gestured toward it with his chin.
“He won’t get in. And he’s not the kind of guy bold enough to barge in when no one answers. Ki Jejun, I mean.”
“……”
The anxiety pressing on her chest slowly faded.
As Haeyoung let out a breath, he reached out and gently lifted her chin.
A short, careful kiss fell on her lips.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted slowly.
“I’ll try to finish work early today.”
“…Why?”
“Let’s meet outside.”
“Outside?”
When Haeyoung asked again, Taejun nodded.
“Why? Don’t want to?”
At those words, her eyes wavered slightly.
“…N-No. See you later.”
They weren’t deeply in love and dating.
But surely they weren’t just a simple relationship of lust either… right?
Then what exactly was this relationship?
They had tangled their bodies together as if there were no tomorrow and greeted the morning in the same bed—yet in reality they weren’t anything to each other.
For a moment, Haeyoung felt a hollow emptiness in her chest, as though something had been punched straight through it.
At school, Haeyoung couldn’t concentrate at all and spent the entire time staring out the window.
Jisoo leaned her head against Haeyoung’s shoulder and groaned.
“I drank way too much yesterday and blacked out, remember? I don’t even know how I got home. When I opened my eyes, it was already morning.”
“Yeah, you did seem to drink a lot yesterday.”
Smiling faintly as she replied, Haeyoung unconsciously pulled up the turtleneck sweater that covered her neck a little higher.
The night before, Taejun had kissed and sucked on her neck so much that it was covered with red marks.
“Didn’t you say your brother was coming to pick you up yesterday?”
“He said he would, but I took a taxi instead, so we just met in front of the house.”
“Want to hear something seriously creepy? The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was check my phone, and apparently I talked to Han Changhyun for fifteen minutes and twenty-four seconds last night.”
Han Changhyun was Jisoo’s ex-boyfriend. From what she’d heard, Jisoo had dumped him because he was too obsessed with sex.
She’d even said it felt like he had the ghost of someone who died from not having sex attached to him.
“You called him while you were drunk?”
“Crazy thing is, he even texted me this morning.”
Haeyoung asked as Jisoo grabbed her hair in frustration.
“What did he say?”
“He says he’s coming over to my place tonight.”
That was surprising.
After all, Haeyoung knew Jisoo had said some pretty harsh things when she broke up with him, determined to cut him off completely.
“Dating someone like you is boring. Even doing it every day gets old. It’s always the same, you and me.”
“His face turned pale and he said he’d try to change, but I told him absolutely not.”
“What did you even talk about for him to say he’s coming over?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he’s coming to hook up again?”
“Why do you look like you’re expecting it?”
“Well… he was kind of excessive about it, but we were really compatible in that area.”
Then why did she say such harsh things when they broke up?
Haeyoung let out a small laugh.
The professor had already entered the classroom and started the lecture, but Jisoo lowered her voice and continued whispering.
“Physical attachment is scary.”
“…Is that really a thing?”
At Haeyoung’s curious question, Jisoo rolled her eyes for a moment as if thinking.
Then she nodded firmly.
“I think it is. I honestly hate Han Changhyun, but sometimes I still think about what it was like with him.”
“That… much?”
“Honestly, even if two people get along emotionally, if they’re not sexually compatible they break up all the time. When you see that, it’s obvious physical attachment really exists.”
Jisoo stared at Haeyoung’s suddenly serious face before poking her in the side.
“What? Why are you thinking about it so seriously? Do you have some ‘physical attachment partner’ now?”
“…No. Of course not.”
“Come to think of it, the guy who kept texting like a crazy person asking if you got home safely didn’t contact you at all yesterday. Huh? Did something happen last night?”
