CHAPTER 77: YOU WERE RIGHT ABOUT IT ALL...

"..."

Le An tried to keep his waist away, held in the air, trembling at the pain in his hips. Yet he still didn’t lift his head from where it was hidden. Taras, finding his stubbornness infuriating, considered forcibly lifting his face but stopped himself.

He sighed as he looked at the ceiling. "Look at me," he said calmly. Le An shook his head, refusing. Taras repeated himself.

"Treasure, lift your head and look at me."

"..."

"I’m saying it one last time."

"..."

Taras, lips parting as if to curse, used every bit of his patience and waited. Then, he withdrew the leg he had used to support Le An from underneath.

Le An’s tired hips fell onto Taras, his waist ached and a muffled voice escaped his lips.

And Taras thought to lay him on the bed and undress him—to smell, touch, and kiss his bare skin. "Fuck..."

Le An heard him cursing, yet, he wriggled his body from where he had fallen immediately. But, unable to lift his hips again, he buried his head further and let out a whimper, only partially hidden.

Taras’s other hand slid inside Le An’s shirt, settling on his back as if gliding over silk.

"H-ha..." Le An shivered along his back, feeling a warm swelling at his hips, and froze. "I-it’s..."

"Okay," Taras murmured in a deep tone. "If it’s scary, don’t look, alright?"

Le An buried himself further as the warm breath brushed his ears, his hands gripping Taras’s upper body tightly. When he felt Taras’s cock twitch, a tingling sensation ran through him.

"Hmmph," Le An squeezed his eyes shut. This was real. Taras... had he become aroused while touching him?

How long had they been like this? Perhaps because he had been lying on top of him for so long...

Unable to think of anything else, Le An’s mind was consumed by the fire growing at his hips. Now, as he felt getting wet, he unconsciously tightened his butt, but his body just wasn’t obeying.

As Taras watched the leaf-like trembling of Le An on top of him, his eyes slid down to the hips lifting involuntarily. Taras gazed at the hands clasping him hard, Le An was holding onto him, his ears and neck bright red. He was pressing his knees together, and Taras knew why. "Ha..."

Slow yet decisive, he slide his fingers down Le An’s back and into his pajamas. When the round curves of his hips fit perfectly into his palms, Taras, disregarding Le An’s further trembling, held his buttocks firmly. And pressed it against his cock.

A ragged breath escaped between his lips as he moved the soft flesh in his hand, releasing and squeezing again.

"Ha... hnngh, T-Taras..!" Le An finally lifted his head and looked into Taras’s eyes, but then immediately hid his face in the crook of his neck again.

There was a scorching look in his eyes, a look that made Le An feel even more helpless than his anger did, and made his knees tremble.

"Pl-please... nnngh- ha..."

"Shh..." Taras, on the verge of losing control of his carefully moderated strength, soothed Le An. "Don’t be afraid. I won’t do anything."

One of his fingers slipped deeper inside Le An’s buttocks as if betraying his words, and a warm wetness touched his fingertip.

"Calm down..." Taras murmured hoarsely, a bit to himself and to Le An. Restraining his tense arms from doing more, yet he couldn’t stop squeezing the soft, warm flesh in his palms. Fuck. Again. And again.

Of course, he wouldn’t do anything to Treasure, who had just now been too weak and pale to control himself. While he was this...scared.

Especially in this house, in this room where other alphas had entered and forcibly touched Treasure. Taras pressed his chin against Le An’s head, with an infuriating feeling.

Was it the same thing for Treasure as it had been with those alphas right now? His eyebrows furrowed.

"Don’t be afraid," Taras said through his teeth, his voice sounded harsh, and his question came out even harsher. "Answer me. Are you afraid of me?"

You said you trust me, Taras wanted to press further. What kind of trust is it that you refuse to look me in the eye?

Le An’s mind, scrambled and consumed with desire, reached the question, and for a moment, he stopped trembling for a bit.

Slowly, he lifted his face from the crook of Taras’s neck, lips parting. "N-no," he said, shaking his head faintly while looking into Taras’s eyes.

"No?" Taras’s palms were gathering sweat as he looked at the beautiful face that messes his mind. He said no.

"Hhng, I..." Le An continued shaking his head, lowering his face again, and added, "I..."

Taras, at the limit of his patience, waited a few more seconds, then, wanting to see his face fully, grabbed Le An’s buttocks and lifted him upward. The sudden friction jerked Le An’s whole body.

Their faces were now right in front of each other. "Hnngh, wait... ungh-!"

And now, Taras’s fully aroused bulge was pressing against Le An’s hole, hard. Le An, burying all courage underwater, looked silently into Taras’s eyes, on the verge of tears. "Hnh..."

"If you’re not afraid of me, then what is it?" Taras murmured. Le An didn’t answer him, he just silently stared back, his pupils trembling.

Taras sighed in his face and muttered. "It’s unbearable..." He whispered. "Fucking unbearable."

Feeling this deadly thirst yet not being able to have you here and now, is unbearable.

Unbearable? Le An felt the urge to cry at the word. If he found it unbearable, then why were they in this state right now? Why, with his ice cold heart, he was torturing him, forcing him to melt into his arms?

A hiccup escaped Le An’s lips, and he quickly wiped away a tear from his eyes. Leaving his body further down, fully against Taras’s, a hiccup escaped his lips as he nodded.

"Unbearable, yes..." Le An accepted it the way it is. He accepted all, finally.

At the same time, a deeper fire ignited in Taras’s eyes. Moving cautiously, afraid of harming what was in his arms, he wondered what to do with Le An for a moment.

Le An, unable to endure the stare, hid his head again in Taras’s neck and murmured, taking a deep breath.

"Wh-what are you doing to me... hhng..."

Taras pressed his nose into Le An’s hair and parted his lips. "You once told me... that you let me touch your neck because I wasn’t a bad person."

"But you were wrong. Weren’t you, Treasure? Now... what will you let me do?"

"Tell me. Whatever you want."

Le An, though his chest and entire body burned as if engulfed in flames, felt a chill running down his back.

The arms and hands pressing against his sides no longer moved, yet even that stillness was unbearable.

His body was now starving—for more of Taras’s scent, for Taras’s touch, for being possessed by him.

And yet, his heart... his heart was opened so wide that without the one thing he truly desired—mutual feelings—it could never be satisfied.

The moment Le An accepted that Taras didn’t feel the same way he did, even though he had already known it deep down, his heart froze—shattered into pieces.

And that heartbreak was entirely his own doing.

Taras wasn’t to blame.

"You’re not a bad person," Le An murmured, his warm breath brushing against Taras’s neck.

As that breath seeped deep into Taras’s veins and heart, he shook his head faintly.

He wasn’t even sure of anything anymore. Yet he had been the one to hurt Treasure—the one who should have been protected—without even realizing it.

He had been the one to blame that child who used to be gently patted on the head by his father... for his father’s death.

Taras slowly raised his hands again toward Le An’s back and began to stroke it in slow motions.

As he sighed, standing in the middle of the fire that tangled his mind, waiting for Le An’s response became slightly more bearable.

Now, with arms broad enough to encompass Le An’s entire frame, Taras held his back as if covering him completely.

And Le An, for the first time, felt as though... they were truly embracing.

"L-like this," his lips let out a faint, powerless murmur. "Just... a little like this."

Just like this. Let’s stay like this a little while.

As if we were holding each other. As if you’re holding me warmly.

Le An felt the warmth beneath him rise even more after Taras understood what he meant.

One of Taras’s hands rested at the nape of his neck, the other around his waist, and as he said, they simply stayed still.

Le An loosened his palms and slowly lowered his hands to Taras’s chest, and he too, though faintly, held him.

After a while, when their breaths evened out, Taras’s voice was heard in the silence, fierce yet quiet—like stoking an ember that had turned into a living flame.

"I’m not a good person."

"In fact," he continued, "I could be the worst person you’ve ever met. The kind you can’t ever be freed from."

"N-no," Le An refused. "You’re not."

"Why do you think so?"

Le An didn’t give him an answer.

The answer was already clear in his heart.

But to say it aloud... that would be the bravest thing he could ever do.

If only he could be that brave, he would answer. He would say—it’s because he likes him. And if that were possible, he wouldn’t even want to be freed from him.

He shut his eyes, holding himself back from crying. But hot tears slipped down from his lashes anyway.

Feeling his chest tighten, Taras slowly cupped Le An’s face to make him look at him.

Le An turned his gaze away and buried his face back into Taras’s neck again. "Hnng, hic... but..."

Taras let him hide again. And between the hiccups, Le An’s trembling voice managed to form a few broken sentences.

"You were right. You were right about it all..."

The murmured words stung Taras’s neck like small, sharp needles.

"What?" he asked softly, trying to see Le An’s face, but Le An refused to lift his head from his neck.

"You were right about it all. People like me... I... I despise myself too."

Le An finally raised his head then, and Taras saw his face. His hands tightened around Le An’s body.

What...

The look on Le An’s face was one of hopelessness, of quiet surrender.

He seemed completely detached from the heaviness of his own words, as though he had already accepted them—and moved past them.

Only on his final words did he seem slightly shaken by his own thoughts. And Taras, he felt suffocated.

"I can... understand why you hid your face," Le An said, voice trembling.

"Each time I look into y-your eyes... I can, hic, see you hate me."