Chapter 12.7

“Is this folder perhaps…”

“Give it to me!”

Sangwoo rushed towards Jaeyoung before he was able to touch the folder. It wouldn’t make a huge difference if he saw the mobile version since he had gotten caught saving the stuff on his computer anyway, but he didn’t want to provide him with an opportunity to tease him right before his own eyes.

“Oh? What is this perv doing?…”

Jaeyoung pulled his hand back. Sangwoo was desperate to reclaim his phone, so he thoughtlessly grabbed his arm and pulled it. As a result, their chests touched as if he were hugging him.

“Where… are you touching?”

Sangwoo had been stiff for a while and then realized that he had touched Jaeyoung’s inner thigh. Even though he quickly removed his hand, a smile spread across those shameless lips. Jaeyoung’s tongue appeared and slowly swept his lips and disappeared. Sangwoo was too weak against that kind of temptation. This time as well, instinct slowly conquered his mind.

It had been nine days since they last kissed. Would those lips smell like vanilla today as well?

Work studio, bar, work studio, Jaeyoung’s car.

Four pieces of data related to kissing went through his mind.

Even though he had said he’d wait, Jang Jaeyoung was a person who was eager to sleep with Sangwoo at least once. Even if it was time to hug his waist, he just made eye contact with him and remained modest. It was as if he knew of Sangwoo’s desire to pull his hair and kiss him violently.

It was as tormenting as if an invisible hand were squeezing his heart. However, Sangwoo was a member of a highly developed civilization. At one point, he was shaken by the desire for flesh and dipped his toe into barbarism, but horribly failed and was filled to the brim with desire (. To cultured people, sexual impulses were merely objects to be controlled. Wouldn’t it be no different from a beast if one were dragged by instinct?

Sangwoo tightly shut his mouth and stretched his arms to recapture his phone, which was dangling in the air. As he immediately turned around to protect the dignity of civilized people, he heard someone faintly whispering to himself.

“What a shame.”

He didn’t have any strength to remain in the work studio anymore. Sangwoo unplugged his laptop and roughly threw it into his backpack without cleaning up.

“Your patience is no joke.”

“This is what I’m usually like.”

“Worthlessly so.”

“Is it a compliment, or a curse?”

“A curse.”

He ignored the words. It was time to leave.

return 0;

As the graphic completeness of <Veggie Venturer> increased, the picture Jaeyoung had drawn on his arm became increasingly blurred. Even though he hadn’t soaped his left arm on purpose, two days later, the detailed drawing had disappeared. Unlike the fading marks, the tension in the work studio gradually increased.

He thought that he would be able to concentrate on work as he had told him that he would wait and that he would do whatever he wanted, but it seemed like that had been too naïve of him. Jaeyoung didn’t force anything, as he had promised, but Sangwoo was quietly stimulated. As a result, an uncomfortable situation arose about once a day. Sangwoo was also at fault there.

‘Your lips are chapped. Do you want to apply lip balm?’

Although he knew that it was a natural thing for keratin cells to fall off skin, Sangwoo couldn’t say the fact out loud.

‘Yes. I definitely need it.’

When he came to his senses, Jaeyoung had rolled up his chair close enough to the point where their knees touched. He had an opportunity to come to his senses until that point. He could’ve asked for lip balm and applied it himself, but irrational expectations stopped Sangwoo.

While sitting still, Jaeyoung opened the lid of a white stick-type product and held it like a pen. He usually didn’t apply any lip balm at all. His left hand touched his chin naturally, as if it had to. That way, he positioned Sangwoo’s face and slowly brought the lip balm to his lips while making direct eye contact.

There were moments when Jang Jaeyoung’s face felt particularly sexy. It was the same when he had asked him to go to the movies together and when he had unbuckled the seatbelt in the car. On that day as well, he had felt that Jaeyoung was like a threatening person with a sharp weapon rather than a beauty product.

Questions like whether the lip balm touching the lips was correct, then why it moved so slowly and so softly, why his heart was racing wildly, and why it was so hot inside the work studio filled his mind.

‘Why are you closing your eyes?’

Jaeyoung left those words filled with laughter in his voice and went back to his seat. Sangwoo immediately escaped to the bathroom and washed his face with cold water. Before he tried to apply it himself, he wanted to erase the subtle scent of vanilla left from his lips that he already knew from experience, but he also wanted to keep treasuring it. Due to such contradictory feelings, he wasn’t able to go back to the work studio for a while.

The following day, Sangwoo entered the work studio, anxious that something would happen again. He scanned Jaeyoung’s desk to see if there would be unexpected objects such as dumplings or lip balm, but apart from trash and Coke cans as usual, there was nothing else there.

“I’m here.”

Jaeyoung was frowning while looking at the monitor.

“You’re here? Did you get dinner?”

“I ate.”

The simple conversation ended. Jaeyoung was unusually quiet that day. After finishing the prototype demonstration, he said there was something he didn’t like and that the UI needed to be fixed. Perhaps he was being like that because that wasn’t going well? With an unhappy expression, he just moved the mouse. Sangwoo grabbed his laptop and his mouse and set it up on an empty seat and while it was booting up, he looked at the ceiling.

If it was as usual, Jaeyoung would’ve had to joke around two or three times in order for the usual schedule to quietly proceed. Sangwoo switched on the game engine and began by looking at the part he had worked on the previous day. He had been working hard for a few days and nearly finished the processing of image output and movement. After resolving the object, he was thinking of turning to server and performance maintenance.

It had probably been five minutes since he started when Sangwoo’s gaze headed towards the seat next to him. Whenever he would look at the monitor again, his head would automatically turn back.

It had to be because people were so inconsistent. He had fed him dumplings, wasted an hour drawing on his arm, personally applied lip balm to him, and even called him on weekends to bother him with useless words, so why was he acting like this today?

“Aren’t you going to do anything today?”

Such a question suddenly popped up. The profile, whose gaze had been fixed on the monitor, became playful. No matter how he looked at it, it seemed like he wanted him to catch that. While feeling a strange satisfaction, even Sangwoo’s mouth wriggled with him. Tapping the desk with his fingertips, Jaeyoung replied, “Truthful version or the strategic version, which one do you want to hear?”

“The truthful version.”

“I have a hunch today, so I’m going to wait and see.”

It wasn’t an answer in response to Sangwoo’s question. It wasn’t the first time Jaeyoung spouted nonsense, so Sangwoo let it be.

“Whatever, just tell me the strategic version.”

Jaeyoung, who was holding his breath and laughter, suddenly erased his expression and looked at Sangwoo. The process of his playful expression disappearing was a lot more amazing than the magic show he saw at the school festival. Jaeyoung sighed slightly and touched Sangwoo’s forehead with his fingertip.

“The work I have to fix isn’t going the way I want it to. I feel wronged so I think I have to go on a walk with you or something.”

‘That crazy bastard.’

Did he think that he would obediently go on a walk with him just because he said so when there was so much to do? Sangwoo turned his focus back to his laptop.

A laugh burst out since he was dumbfounded. Just because of the mere reason that Jaeyoung had spoken to him for a minute, he felt clear and refreshed.

“I’m going to concentrate so don’t talk to me.”

“Ah, yes…,” Jaeyoung said.

With a serious face, he just tidied up the mouse and the keyboard and acted as if Sangwoo wasn’t in the room. Feeling slightly nervous, his work speed took off. The peripheral view on his left side caught sight of Jaeyoung’s right hand. He was bothered by the sound of the keyboard clicking and the occasional coughing, but the light palpitations increased his concentration. There was such an advantage with closely working side by side with Jaeyoung. In fact, it was the only positive thing he provided Sangwoo with.

As always, time went by quickly in the work studio. After working for two hours, he drank water, talked about useless things with Jaeyoung, checked the work Jaeyoung had finished, worked for another hour, and after he went and returned from the bathroom, it was time to go home.

“You really didn’t disturb me today. You didn’t even joke around and held it together very well,” Sangwoo said while organizing his laptop and his mouse. Thanks to that, he had gotten a considerable amount of work done in graphics, development, and workload. Next to him, Jaeyoung stretched and checked the clock on the wall.

“It’s 10 p.m. You’re about to leave, right?”

“It’s the time I should leave, so I should go.”

Sangwoo put his laptop in his backpack and zipped it up. As soon as he was about to put it on his back, Jaeyoung called at him.

“Sangwoo.”

When he just turned his head back, Jaeyoung was stretching out the pushed down part of the sneakers he had been wearing. It looked like he was about to go outside, but where would he be going?

“What?”

“Truth, strategy?”

“The truth.”

“I told you earlier that I had a hunch. Do you want to hear the strategic version as well?”

“I’m fine with that matter now.”

Sangwoo left the work studio. Soon, the door opened and Jaeyoung followed him. He couldn’t tell whether he liked it or not.