1440 - Chapter 48

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 48
The moment Yeonsu realized he could hear his own voice, something caught in his throat. His eyes burned with the threat of tears. Even knowing he couldn’t actually cry, he blinked anyway, brushing away moisture that wasn’t there.
“……Yes. There’s still much defilement clinging to me. If I can cleanse it, the pain should ease.”
Gentle words spilled out with concern. The clear voice resonating quietly in his mind struck like glass stones on a go board—tap, tap—each one exposing his emotions.
For a man who was always expressionless, Yeonsu discovered he could convey emotion to this degree. The realization filled him with both joy and a tender ache.
“……Then.”
“……?”
“If you’re going to take my essence anyway, would it be all right if I kissed you?”
At Yeonsu’s request, the man’s hands—which had been tracing his temples and chest in distress—went utterly still.
Fingertips brushed softly across Yeonsu’s bandaged head and withdrew. Backlit by the warm amber glow, the man’s silhouette gleamed with an almost halo-like radiance.
The man was flustered. He couldn’t understand why Yeonsu was speaking of kissing now.
Yeonsu had always avoided sharing sexual acts as a means of taking his essence. He’d never expected to feel such warmth from him.
Or had he truly not known? He was aware that Yeonsu cherished him, held him dear—but was that really all it had been?
For the man himself, facing that emotion—was it truly nothing but gladness at such tenderness?
The man had never kissed anyone before, but if he were to do so, he wanted it to be with Yeonsu. Only with Yeonsu.
Slowly, the man’s head bowed in assent.
At his permission, Yeonsu felt as though he held the whole world in his hands. The chest pain that had been worsening all this while no longer mattered. His heart was beating far too hard to feel anything else.
46
Yeonsu’s face tilted slowly forward. The man’s eyes squeezed shut with tension.
His dark lashes trembled, pressed so tightly they quivered. His nose rose delicately, straight and proud. And his lips—pale pink, seemingly thin yet full where his lower lip was pressed, holding a subtle volume.
Yeonsu studied that face carefully, one detail at a time, then drew the man’s hand—which had been fumbling over him all this while—to himself. Instead of the man’s lips, Yeonsu pressed his own gently to those fingertips with a soft, audible kiss.
The smooth, moist sensation against his hand rather than his lips made the man’s eyes snap open. He looked momentarily bewildered, glancing back and forth between his own hand and Yeonsu’s lips.
Watching the man’s expression—so pure and innocent it was almost childlike—Yeonsu offered his lips again. This time, playful and deliberate, he rubbed gently, letting his tongue taste the man’s fingertips on the inside of his lips.
The ticklish sensation made the man’s hand twitch and curl, and only then did Yeonsu release it and rise from his seat.
“Much defilement did cling to me today, but this is not my karmic retribution. So it’s nothing grave enough to burden someone whose body is already wounded.”
Then, with practiced ease, he returned with what was needed to wash the man.
The man felt a wave of resistance. He’d been seen unclothed before during Yeonsu’s treatment of his wounds, but now the marks of the past lay exposed and raw.
The marks where Yeon-hyeong had struck him, tormented him, left him defiled.
“I don’t want……to.”
He didn’t want those wounds shown. But Yeonsu’s hands were resolute. Gripping the unmarked part of his flesh firmly, Yeonsu slowly parted his collar.
“It’s hard for me to move. So don’t run away from me, all right?”
He used his own injury as an excuse, leaving the man with no choice but to remain still. It was practically coercion. The man found himself unable to move, as if bound.
Seeing the man comply, Yeonsu let out a quiet laugh to himself. He had to laugh, or the savage feeling coursing through him would spill out entirely.
Perhaps it was fortunate that the darkness kept him from seeing everything clearly.
He wiped the man’s white, soft chest with a towel. From the marks, it seemed one side was swollen more heavily than the other from being bitten and abused.
“Mm. Ah…….”
“Does it hurt? I’ll be gentle, so relax your body.”
He cleaned it carefully, painlessly, working his way down to the man’s waist. The lower abdomen was far worse—a mess of marks. As he wiped away the dried remnants with a damp towel again and again, the man grew embarrassed and tried to pull his knees up to cover himself. Every inch seemed marked and soiled.
On the other hand, Yeonsu found himself understanding why the man acted like a rutting beast.
The man’s white, smooth legs stirred in him an urge to bite them. But before those thoughts could spiral further, Yeonsu hurried to finish cleaning him and applied medicine.
As Yeonsu rushed through, the man quickly dressed and covered himself. An odd, uncomfortable silence settled while Yeonsu tidied up—as though the kiss from moments before had never happened.
“……I should go offer prayers.”
As Yeonsu tried to rise, the man grabbed him urgently. Now he looked at Yeonsu directly, speaking with quiet insistence.
“After your prayers, let’s sleep together. So you’ll hurt less while resting.”
Though he’d been embarrassed just moments before, the man’s words came quickly now—as if his concern for Yeonsu’s pain mattered more than his own shame.
His tenderness was so gentle and warm that even Yeonsu, who’d been tormenting himself over his own wicked thoughts, found himself nodding without hesitation.
“……Yes. I will.”
With that promise made, Yeonsu climbed to the second-floor Temple Hall. With each step up the stairs, his face grew warmer.
He’d harbored dirty thoughts and dared to want a kiss—yet the man tried to embrace him like he was still a child. Yeonsu wanted to tell him he was a grown adult now. It was such a foolish feeling.
In the end, Yeonsu washed himself in cold water until his afflictions faded. Though the painkillers had worn off and his chest throbbed, he held his body rigid under the icy stream. Even after long minutes under the cold water, the wayward thoughts wouldn’t dissipate, so he deliberately donned uncomfortable clothes and began to pray.
Where his prayers usually turned toward the divine, tonight they were prayers of repentance—to shake off his afflictions. Eyes closed and hands clasped, no matter how he focused on prayer, his mind kept drifting to the man’s lips, the sight of bare skin and soiled thighs.
In the end, though Yeonsu had promised to come to bed, he didn’t leave the Temple Hall until the first light of dawn broke through.
***
The next morning, the man woke to the pleasant sound of movement. Then he was startled to find the space beside him already empty.
The night before, Yeonsu hadn’t come down to his room until well past midnight, when the pale blue light of early dawn was already spreading across the stone.
He’d looked so tired and worn that the man quickly made room. He offered his arm as an awkward pillow and pulled the large frame close, feeling how Yeonsu instinctively arranged himself to avoid further pain.
The man’s heart ached. Every time they fell asleep together, he took such care that Yeonsu wouldn’t hurt—yet still he’d returned bearing fresh wounds.
This time, he desperately hoped Yeonsu would hold on. Unlike the harsh years before, he prayed that this time Yeonsu would stay healthy and happy for a long time to come.
For hours he stroked and caressed and held the man who’d settled beside him, until he too drifted off to sleep. When he woke, Yeonsu was already up and moving busily about.
The touch from the night had done some good—he moved without apparent difficulty. Beyond that, his stamina seemed exceptional. With such vitality came swift recovery.
The man opened the sliding door and gazed at Yeonsu, who was preparing something in the Kitchen. His eyes grew distant, absorbed in memory.
They say personality doesn’t change easily, and indeed, even with the years that had passed, Yeonsu remained unchanged—so recognizable that he could be identified at a glance despite all that time between them.
It was different from when he would come to him as a boy, complaining of headaches. Then, seeing the child’s small frame suffer so, he had felt only pity and ache. But now…… now, inexcusably, he found himself desiring him.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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