BCPCF Chapter 1 (Part 2)
by BrieI decided to chalk that night’s incident up to a mistake on my part. There’s no way a wall could move on its own, so it couldn’t have been a thief. Which left… a ghost. But it seemed healthier for my sanity to just say I saw it wrong.
‘I was probably just overtired after that long flight. Just a hallucination.’
In a way, maybe it was a good thing. One way or another, I adjusted to life here pretty quickly. After thinking it over for a few days, I realized that now that Cassian knew my secret, I needed to find a way to shut him up. If his psychometry was real—and it sure seemed like it was—then this was urgent. I had to figure out where he went, who he talked to, what he said. Hell, I’d put a stethoscope to the walls if I had to. Knowing his personality, he probably wasn’t the type to go blabbing about my past, but… better safe than sorry.
At some point, I found myself constantly tracking him with my eyes. Like I was under some kind of spell. It got to the point where even I was embarrassed by how I was always looking around to see where Cassian was.
After tailing him all day, I noticed a weird pattern: he’d eat breakfast, wander outside, get rushed to the ER, eat lunch, go outside again, and then—like clockwork—get rushed to the ER again by dinnertime.
Today, I’d wanted to follow him right after breakfast too, but Bella Smith’s nagging got in the way. It wasn’t until evening that I finally had a free moment.
I was lucky to catch a glimpse of him leaving the building as I walked down the hallway.
‘Where the hell was he all day when I was actively looking for him?’
Now the sky outside had already darkened into night.
‘Damn… It’s going to get even darker soon. If a ghost shows up, I will pass out cold. Guaranteed.’
This place, shaped like a half-sized pepperoni pizza, wasn’t that big. Including the polygon-shaped dormitory complex attached to it, you could circle the entire property in fifteen minutes. It bordered a forest, and while I wasn’t totally familiar with the area yet, I figured I could keep up with Cassian just fine right now.
‘Let’s go. Quick.’
Outside, darkness swallowed everything. The only thing that greeted me was the pale moonlight. Most of the lights in the facility were off or blocked by curtains, so the moon was the only source of illumination. My sneakers made soft crunches against the dirt path as I walked, but… I felt a chill run down my spine.
Cough, cough…
Someone was coughing. That had to be Cassian.
‘I’ve never heard of a ghost that coughs. Even if it’s not him, it has to be a person—thank God.’
Feeling slightly less terrified, I carefully followed the sound.
Behind the center tower, shadows pooled heavily—so much that I couldn’t make out a single figure.
‘No way… is it really a ghost? No, please—let it be a person! Please!’
I finally spotted a faint silhouette in the moonlight. It was just a shadow cast by something that had collided with an object. As I stepped back, realizing it wasn’t a person at all—
“Aaaaaaaugh!”
Something caught on my foot, and I frantically swatted around my ankle with my hand. Oh. Upon closer inspection, it was just a patch of foxtail grass.
‘I seriously almost died… from pure fear.’
Only after surviving that little scare did I manage to widen my focus and look around properly. Like Emily had explained, the facility was laid out in a half-circle. But now, there was something strange—an entrance that hadn’t been there before. I was sure I hadn’t seen it this morning. But now, there it was. A door. Plain as day.
‘It definitely wasn’t there earlier… So why is it now? Is this some kind of door that only appears in the evening? But… it wasn’t there yesterday either?’
‘So what the hell kind of entrance is this…?’
A normal dungeon gate would be open until it was cleared. But this one was shut—and there was some weird writing on it, too.
‘So is it a dungeon or not? What is this?’
Regular dungeon gates looked like swirling purple portals—doorways into another world. But this… this just looked like a plain old wooden basement door. Something you’d expect to find stuffed with junk, not monsters. I jiggled the handle. It wasn’t even locked. Curious, I leaned in to read the sign hanging on the door.
[At the end of the world, may waiting manifest as dreams.]
Written in English… or maybe broken English. The strange little inscription only made my skin crawl more.
‘Dreams…? It shows up in dreams?’
An ominous chill swept through me, as if that phrase alone could stretch into the depths of despair. I ran my fingers over the letters—they weren’t written in ink, but engraved deeply, like the work of a master carver.
‘Suspicious. This is so suspicious. This is totally the kind of thing Cassian would go into.’
Reluctantly, I took a step forward and muttered:
“Please don’t let him be in here…”
Where there should have been nothing but concrete wall, an impossibly vast space loomed. The area beyond was much larger than the entire Huntsville facility. It was cylindrical, with barely visible lighting—too faint to see the end. A spiral staircase led downward, twisted like the insides of some enormous beast. Hot gusts occasionally wafted up from below, thick and heavy like digestive fumes from a monster’s belly. The stairs were steep, the air pitch-black. I had to grope the damp walls with every step.
I wanted to turn back. I’d already been descending for twenty minutes and still saw no end. Even accounting for the lack of light, I’d come deep. Then—
Something like seaweed wrapped around my ankle, and I almost passed out. When I looked down, it was as if the dark air itself had tethered me. The wall before me, made of cold brick, was now sprouting moss—fast. I could see it growing in real time.
‘Okay… maybe this really is a dungeon.’
If this place were man-made, it wouldn’t be this terrifying.
‘Yeah. No. Forget this.’
I turned and bolted up the stairs, my legs trembling. Sweat ran down my back. It felt like a monster was coiled at the bottom, about to spring up after me.
“What are you doing down here?”
“!!”
I was already strung tight with nerves. The moment I heard that voice, I fainted. My vision turned white. The last thing I saw was Cassian—and the realization that, in a way, it was good I came here. But the shock of him appearing out of nowhere, like he’d reached through my ribcage, was too much. I blacked out.
“Haa…”
Cassian stared down at the collapsed Ah-jun and sighed deeply.
‘What the hell am I supposed to do with this guy…’
His eyes flicked upward in exasperation. Ideally, he’d make sure Ah-jun never set foot here again—but knowing his personality, telling him to stay out would only encourage him more.
‘Just my luck some pain-in-the-ass had to wander in…’
He bent down and lifted Ah-jun over his shoulder. The guy was light—like he barely ate anything. No wonder he fainted so easily.
The moment Cassian held him, something caught his eye. That old, rickety door—it had been marked in a way only Cassian would recognize. And yet Ah-jun had found it.
‘How the hell did he even find this? What is this guy?’
Still, the sight of the unconscious Ah-jun made him sigh again. Just as he was turning to leave, something else caught his attention.
“……”
Cassian stepped halfway through the door with Ah-jun slung over his shoulder. The moss he always noticed here—normally brittle and dead—was now plump and damp again. Touching it felt like squeezing a soaked sponge.
Something had changed.
Cassian tilted his head, staring at the moss for a long time.
Then, without another word, he moved deeper into the shadows.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
How could I have followed Cassian out at night to try to shut him up when I don’t even have the guts for this kind of thing? In the dead of night, no less! I can’t even get through the opening scenes of a horror movie—who would’ve imagined a place this terrifying actually existed?
Honestly, if I were going to die getting snatched by a ghost, then to hell with the past. But the ghost turned out to be Cassian, so that was a relief—wait, what relief? I completely blacked out!
This is a patient’s room. Whose room? I’d been here a few times before, so I knew. A bare, lifeless room. No photos, no personal touches. It was Cassian’s.
“I did bring you back, though.”
It was the kind of question no one asked—but also the kind I couldn’t bring myself to voice. I was just opening and closing my mouth silently when Cassian, appearing from who knows where, came out of the bathroom toweling off his face like he’d just washed it.
“Didn’t think you’d be out cold all day. Thanks to you, I slept on the floor for the first time in ages.”
“S-sorry.”
Wait a second—why was I apologizing again? He was the one who knocked me out! And with the way he looks—like someone who’d happily spill all your secrets the second he finds them out—it made perfect sense that I’d trail him at night. Yeah… thinking about it, I didn’t do anything wrong. Nope.
I straightened up with a posture that screamed “zero guilt,” and Cassian let out a baffled laugh.
“If you’re not sorry, why even say it?”
He cracked his neck with a loud pop and lazily shook his head. I stared at him, kind of dazed, and suddenly realized—I’d never properly treated him before. As if on cue, he started coughing, and I thought, yep, that tracks. I stepped toward him. He bowed his head and covered his face, hacking into his hands. That posture would just restrict his airway more—he wouldn’t even be able to get the coughs out properly like that…
Ah… is this okay? I wasn’t sure, but I approached Cassian slowly and placed a hand on his shoulder.
The second I touched him, a jolt shot through me like lightning had struck.
“Urgh!”
It wasn’t just a sharp zap like getting hit by static—it was burning hot, like a lightning strike. I wondered if his powers were going out of control and stepped toward the emergency button by the bed.
Cough, cough.
Cassian was overcome with wave after wave of coughing, his face flushed red. He looked like he was hyperventilating from the effort.
Just as I reached for the emergency bell, his hand knocked mine away. Oh, come on! What was I supposed to do, then? In a panic, I clamped my hand over his mouth. No plastic bag in sight, and the emergency paper pouch we were supposed to keep around? Long forgotten.
“Khff… ngh…”
He tried to swat my hand away, but when I used both hands to cover his mouth, he hesitated and slowly calmed down. I began to guide him carefully, and a faint white aura began to seep out from me. Cassian staggered, then rested his head on my shoulder. I had no choice but to hug him tightly, keeping one hand over his mouth. Both my hands were slick with saliva and bright red blood.
I didn’t know what to do with my hands, fumbling awkwardly, and Cassian handed me the towel that was draped around his shoulders. I wiped my hands without a second thought, and he gave me a strange look.
“Doesn’t that gross you out?”
“What’s gross about it? You’re a patient.”
His eyes widened for a second, then he let out a small laugh. I guess he thought the blood all over my hands was disgusting. But honestly, I didn’t feel anything at all.
“Is this because you had to sleep on the floor all day? Then I really am sorry.”
I tried to joke, but Cassian—already drained from all the coughing and hyperventilating—just stayed quietly in my arms and looked up at me.
Those golden eyes peeking through his deep, beautiful hair were striking, no matter how many times I saw them. If there was a god of beauty, it had to be him.
I actually forgot how to breathe for a second under his gaze. I felt like I had to say something—anything—so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Do you like sardine pie, by any chance? I think it’s kinda good.”
And then I added, “Since we haven’t had breakfast yet, maybe we could eat together.”
Cassian wiped the bloodied mess off his face with the other side of the towel I’d just used, nodding like it was no big deal. Uh… wasn’t that the disgusting part? I’d wiped his blood with my hands, and now he was wiping his face with the same towel?
Cassian headed for the dining room like nothing was wrong. But wait—he wasn’t actually going to eat sardine pie now, was he?
…Don’t tell me. Does he actually like sardine pie?
“Ah…”
Not long after, Cassian staggered and reached for the wall to steady himself. Tch. I figured that might happen. Sure, he could take down an esper with one kick, but once he got sick, he was even weaker than an average person.
He’d coughed up a lot of blood. Now he seemed dizzy, probably from the blood loss. I slipped my shoulder under his arm and grabbed his hand draped over me like I was wringing out a wet towel.
“Could you hold me a little more gently?”
“If you keep the secret you figured out about me until the end.”
“Secret? What secret?”
That clueless expression of his was infuriating. I wanted to interrogate him—how did you know? Where’d you hear it? Was it on a website? Did you see it in the news? But even without psychometry, there were plenty of ways to find out. It had made the news… anonymously, but still. The hospital tried to handle it quietly online, but people who knew, knew.
‘Come on, who would know something like that all the way over here, in another country—in New Zealand, the last land of dungeons?’
Still not convinced, I stared holes into Cassian. To someone else watching, it might’ve looked like I was flirting. I wasn’t. Really. But when someone that good-looking is standing next to you, this kind of thing just happens. Can’t be helped.
“If you don’t touch that place, I can keep my mouth shut about you too.”
That sounded like a final warning. He must be talking about that cave-like spot beneath the strange door. The one with that weird inscription? The one he said shows up in dreams?
It was in a spot where anyone walking around at night might stumble across it, but it seemed Cassian wanted to keep it secret. I had my own skeletons, so I just nodded in agreement.
“…So, uh. Are we seriously eating sardine pie?”
He snickered and placed a slice of sardine pie on my plate. I piled a mountain of greens on top of it and sat beside him, quietly chewing through leaves. No one else came near wherever Cassian sat. Even Zekiel, who locked eyes with me across the room, gave me a thumbs-up like, ‘Go get him!’ and looked at me with that goofy ‘You’ve got this!’ expression.
‘That’s not what this is.’
Still, it felt like everyone was thinking the same thing—’Please tame him. Make that beast into a puppy. Just do something.’
I finished all the greens. Meanwhile, Cassian, being a total coward, switched to apple pie. He nibbled at it like he wasn’t even eating, and I kind of wanted to feed him myself—but I wasn’t that shameless. We weren’t that close. He probably wouldn’t even take it as a joke.
Cassian, probably wiped out from all the coughing and hyperventilating, ate silently and disappeared without a word.
Seemed like he returned to his room. All I could do was watch his back as he left. He still wobbled a little—looked like he hadn’t fully recovered from the dizziness. Maybe it was better to just let him rest. If our promise still stood, then both our secrets were safe.
‘Come to think of it, has anyone else even noticed that shabby old door?’
It wasn’t time for rounds yet, and we hadn’t gotten the morning call, so I figured I’d check things out before Dorothy’s mom had another meltdown.
I started walking quickly—but my pace slowed once I reached the same spot as yesterday. That rickety wooden door behind the Center Tower. I circled around, looking for it again, even though it was broad daylight.
“…Nothing.”
The shabby door that looked like something he might’ve built himself was gone. In its place was a clean concrete pillar building. ‘Did I imagine the whole thing?’ There had to be a reason Cassian wanted to keep this place secret.
‘A dungeon…? No, that’s not right. Dungeons usually scream “I’m here!” But this one…’
‘What is it? What does Cassian want to hide so badly?’
New Zealand. It wasn’t called the last borderland of dungeons for nothing. It had the most dungeons on Earth. Small towns like this were full of minor ones—so many that even the little ones couldn’t be ignored. That’s why, even with good perks, more guides ran away from jobs than signed up for them.
‘Well, whatever. I’ve got skeletons of my own, so I shouldn’t poke my nose into his.’
Some places are better left alone. As long as Cassian keeps my secret, I’ll keep my mouth shut too.
In a dream, I suddenly remembered something my father once told me. His memories always linger like fragments, showing up from time to time in my sleep.
‘Ah-jun, do you think the very first esper in the world ever met their guide?’
‘Umm… I’m not sure.’
‘They say he’s still alive. Cursed, wandering around like a ghost. He turned into a spirit just to find his guide in dreams.’
‘Eek, that’s scary.’
‘Ah, sorry, son. Come here. Want me to rock you to sleep in Daddy’s arms?’
‘Dad, don’t tell me stories like that. They’re scary.’
Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, my little Ah-jun… Sleep tight, sleep so well. Who’s your mama bird, huh? No one can take you away, kiddo. Daddy bird’s here to protect you… Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, my Ah-jun. You sleep so soundly, so well.
Dorothy’s mother, and even Michael, were unusually quiet today. If not for that weird incident this morning, it might’ve been the perfect day. Oh, and for the record—sardine pie was disgusting. I had to brush my teeth three times and gargle five more just to get the taste out. I thought my teeth were gonna melt.
“You one of those gays or what?”
…Grandpa Michael asked me that out of nowhere. Huh? What now? I stared at him with a dumb look on my face—what was that supposed to mean, suddenly turning an average guy gay like that? I blinked and asked, “Huh?” and he just nodded like I’d said yes.
“Better be careful around Cassian. Ever since I got here, he’s been going around bewitching people. Totally careless, that guy.”
“It’s not like that…”
The rumor had already spread all over the ward: I came out of Cassian’s room with him in the morning, and we ate breakfast together. It really drove home how much of a hot topic he was in this place.
“What do you mean it’s not like that? You went and dropped him cold. That kind of careless attitude—losing interest and just tossing people aside.”
Cassian probably never had any real interest in anyone to begin with. He didn’t come across as the type. Maybe people just assumed he cared, jumped in headfirst, and ended up disappointed when they realized the truth. Anyway…
“I’m not gay.”
“Sure. Keep telling yourself that. Keep denying it.”
‘I said I’m not!’
Geez. Sure, they say love between espers and guides—read: connection rate—has no gender, but still. I personally think gender does matter, at least a little.
I held Grandpa Michael’s hand tightly and focused. A white aura swirled around him before gently sinking in, like metal drawn to a magnet. It felt like water soaking into dry earth—he was absorbing my energy fast. In times like these, I really felt like some kind of human icing bag.
I could feel the strength draining out of me. Even just treating two or three people a day was physically exhausting. Any guide under 5%, or general-use guides like me, experienced this kind of fatigue. You could guide up to six patients per day, but more than that, and you’d either faint or collapse. And if a guide collapses, there’s nothing anyone can do. An esper can’t heal a guide. All you can do is hook them up to an IV and hope they recover quickly.
Espers had it rough, but so did guides. Everyone was suffering. Was a truly happy society just a fantasy? Thinking about it made me sigh without realizing.
By now, the sun had set, and the hospital lights had dimmed to their nighttime setting. The halls were dark and empty, and just walking down them gave me goosebumps.
Even though I knew there were no such things as ghosts, I still flinched at windows rattling in the wind. The weird stuff that happened in the dungeon flashed through my mind again—dark, damp…
‘Is it just because I’ve been overthinking things lately?’
Back at the dorm, I took a hot shower, dried off thoroughly, changed into my pajamas, and lay down. But it felt like I was being crushed by sleep paralysis—my whole body got heavier and heavier.
Maybe it was the change in sleeping environment, or the fact that I’d been inside a weird dungeon with Cassian, or just seeing too many scary things lately. Even with every light in the room turned on, I still trembled under the covers like a kid scared of ghosts.
Then, suddenly, Cassian appeared in front of me as I lay on my side.
No—more like a ghost in his shape. Wait… hold on. It really was Cassian, wasn’t it? What the hell? I reached out toward him, but I couldn’t touch him. …It’s a ghost. It’s a freaking ghost.
Well, I could’ve touched him if I wanted, but unless he reached out to me, I wouldn’t make contact.
‘What is this? What is he even doing?’
Is this the part where I pass out? Yeah. Yeah, let’s just pass out.
Pass out. Cue.
Cassian pulled the blanket I had pulled over my head and laughed quietly. I nearly died—not just from fainting, but like, crossing over kind of died. That was seriously terrifying.
Bathed in faint moonlight from the window, I could see his face as he laughed. For some reason, I just stayed still, as if hypnotized, while he hugged me.
‘Wait a second… This isn’t a nightmare…’
He whispered softly in a secretive voice and chuckled. I wondered what kind of expression he had on his face as he looked at me.
“W-what… what are you doing…?”
I asked bravely.
With a seductive look, he grabbed at the waistband of my pants. Uh—okay, no. No, no, no.
‘Wait, this isn’t a nightmare… it’s… a wet dream?’
“Why not?”
With movements so slow I couldn’t even register what was happening, he pulled my pants down to my hips, revealing my clean, freshly-washed, and completely dry penis.
Embarrassed, I squeezed my eyes shut. Cassian’s fingers slid over it and gently parted his lips. Like a snake slithering from a cave to taste something delicious, his tongue started sucking lightly on the tip. With his other free hand, he opened the front of my pajama top. Then, slipping his fingers in, he touched my nipple.
I had always thought of nipples as useless, like little bumps that served no purpose. But the moment someone else touched them—it felt strange. He was sucking below while grazing me above, and the sensation had my head spinning.
“Haa… ahh…”
The heat kept rising. As he sucked on my penis, he looked up at me with sultry, half-lidded eyes, the corners of his gaze folding in seductively. I wanted to grab his hair and pull him away, but I couldn’t—so all I could do was clutch the sheets in a death grip. My vision began to blur as Cassian stared up at me with that intense, unrelenting look… There’s no way this could be real.
But I hated how my body kept getting harder, so I shook my head from side to side in frustration. When I clenched my teeth tightly, he cooed softly, “Shh… good boy…” and slipped a finger between them before returning to tease my nipples again. He took all of me into his mouth, and I could feel his unwavering determination—like he was going to devour me whole. The pleasure started to build.
The fact that he was taking my penis into his mouth—something I never imagined, never even considered—was overwhelming. He must have found that one spot I was especially sensitive to, because every time his tongue swept over it, I couldn’t help but kick my legs in response to the pleasure.
“Ugh… ahh… ngh…”
I didn’t want to make those weird sounds. But every time I tried to hold back, he’d slip his fingers between my teeth so I couldn’t clench them. And whenever a bit of sound escaped me, he’d lower his hand and start massaging both of my chests at once.
I couldn’t hear any sounds from outside. The only thing echoing in my ears was the sound of him sucking on my own, the sound of my nipples being flicked. A tingling sensation at the back of my neck. No one had ever sucked on me before. I didn’t have a girlfriend. After all, it’s strange to dream of a man sucking me. All the lewd acts happening in my room returned to me as stimuli tickling my ears.
“You should enjoy it too, sweetheart.”
As the shape of it became more defined from growing harder, my face flushed deep red. Under the dim moonlight, it didn’t seem like Cassian cared one bit about how embarrassed I looked. He moved his throat like he was savoring something delicious, swallowing deeply. It almost felt like he was going to take me in all the way to the back of his throat.
“Mmgh, n-no… I don’t want this…!”
Every time he made a ring with his thumb and index finger to suck more easily on my penis, even the subtle stimulation from his fingers made my hips twist slightly. With his other hand, he was aggressively rubbing my nipples, and before I knew it, my pajama top had slid completely off. My swollen, puffy nipples were clearly visible, even to me.
I should’ve either grabbed his hair or at least covered my chest, but my mind went completely blank—I turned into an idiot. Each time I twisted my body from the overwhelming pleasure, the bed sheet scraped against my skin with soft, shuffling friction. My body felt like it was being possessed—I couldn’t move properly at all.
Or maybe… my own desire was just that strong. Damn it. If I was going to be possessed, couldn’t it have been by a pretty older girl? Why did it have to be Cassian? It felt weird, especially since everything Michael said this morning was coming true. Was this really what it meant to be bewitched by someone?
I’d always thought nipples were pointless—just something that existed without much use—so I never imagined touching them would feel like anything. But just having him brush around the stiffened, pink little peaks sent a tingling jolt up from my thighs, like I’d been shocked, stirring up excitement.
Realizing I was completely aroused, Cassian finally pulled his mouth away from my penis.
His lips glistened with a mix of my pre-cum and his own saliva. Even that sight was strangely beautiful, leaving me speechless. His sharp, masculine jawline stood out clearly.
Thinking he might stop now, I instinctively pulled my knees in tight to stop him from leaving. But my overly sensitive penis twitched in response, and my legs trembled slightly. When he knelt between my peach-like knees, I nearly let out a hiccup from surprise.
“Touch it too… here.”
Cassian took my hand and guided it to the area near my nipple—the same spot he’d been teasing earlier. I wondered if he could hear how loud my heart was pounding. Could he really? I could already hear it thudding in my own ears, so maybe it wasn’t too far-fetched.
“Ugh…”
“See? Feels good for you too, right?”
He was using my own hand to touch my nipple. His voice was tightly restrained, but I could tell—he was clearly aroused. His words were soaked in that deep, husky tone, like his voice had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. A spark flickered in his golden eyes, and those eyes… they were fixed squarely on my groin, like they were drawn to it.
He took off his shirt and was already undoing the front of his pants.
He put his fingers into his mouth and moistened them until they were glistening with saliva, then hurriedly moved that hand towards my exposed backside. I… I don’t know why I did it, but like I was truly possessed by a ghost, I moved my knees apart according to his arm’s movements and performed the act of showing him my intimate areas. I couldn’t understand why I was doing it either. At some point, I just thought of it as a real possession, or whether I really had feelings for Cassian remained an unknown.
His urgent fingers carefully parted the wrinkled folds, revealing the flushed, tender flesh inside. I squeezed my eyes shut, but each time I did, Cassian would gently stroke my cheek and coax me to meet his gaze.
Faced with his beauty, all I could manage was a stammering, “Uh… uh…”
His thick eyebrows, golden eyes, and deep black hair gave off a presence that felt somehow otherworldly—different from any East Asian features I knew. Strange, yet mesmerizing.
“I thought you wouldn’t like me,” he murmured.
“But it seems that’s not the case here… so I’m glad.”
Each time that gently parted opening twitched, Cassian’s gaze grew more mischievous. His eyes sparkled with amusement, watching my reaction with clear interest—I wanted to cover my face.
When his thick fingers lightly traced around the entrance, a gasp escaped me before I could stop it.
That untouched place, not knowing its own owner’s feelings, was reacting all on its own—clenching and twitching. I didn’t even know what it wanted, but the shameful dream I was caught in tossed me back and forth like a wave. Everywhere he touched sent ticklish jolts through me that made me feel like I was going to lose it.
“N-no… I don’t want this.”
“That’s not the kind of answer I’m looking for.”
My voice came out strange—wavering, unsure. Because honestly… he was right. I didn’t hate it. But when his fingers teased that unfamiliar place, I couldn’t help but pull my legs in tightly.
When Cassian coated his fingers with saliva and slowly pressed one in, I grabbed his head in panic and kept repeating, “No, not this… I don’t want this… I really don’t…”
“I’m going to keep going until I hear you say you like it… so what should we do about that?”
He looked at me with a crescent-moon smile.
And then, just like that—he began to fade away, becoming hazy and vanishing.
“Gasp…!”
It felt like my whole body had been bound tight and suddenly released—all the tension drained at once. When I opened my eyes, I realized my clothes were neatly on, and I was curled up near the edge of the bed. But the uncomfortable feeling down below was still there.
I didn’t want to check… but in this empty room, just in case someone might walk in, I glanced around first, then cautiously peeked into my underwear.
“Aaah~ What the heck even happened~”
To think I’d have a wet dream at this age—something sticky clung between my underwear and genitals, stretching unpleasantly. I tore at my bangs, screaming internally for a long time as I wrestled with myself. I had no idea what could’ve possibly happened to me to make me dream something like that. Why on earth did Cassian show up, suck on my chest and my thing, and then just vanish?
When I twisted my head like wringing a towel, a splitting headache slammed into me. But even that pain was less unbearable than admitting I, at this age, had a wet dream involving a man. I couldn’t tell if it was some kind of spirit encounter or just a plain wet dream. All I knew was that I’d come, so chances were, it was a wet dream. Which somehow made it worse.
My whole body felt paralyzed like I’d been pinned by sleep paralysis. Whatever I’d experienced between spirit visitation and a wet dream, I felt like I’d gone insane. This was a nightmare. Yeah. A nightmare—that’s the only reason something so absurd could’ve happened.
What drove me even crazier was that I remembered every single movement he made, every word I said. All of it burned into my memory with disturbing clarity. …You’re not supposed to put anything in there. I tried to forget faster, yanking at my hair like I was searching for lice. It hurt. This was reality.
After taking a shower, the memories of last night only became clearer. Every time the water from the showerhead ran down near my butt, I flinched for no reason. Was I seriously losing my mind? I banged my head against the wall—thud, thud. I swore to myself I wouldn’t have a dream like that again tonight, and busied myself with extra fuss just to shake it off.
I went to the cafeteria for breakfast and piled my plate high, then stuffed food into my mouth like nothing was wrong—if anything, I went a little over the top. As I aggressively chewed through my meal, Zekiel approached me.
“Oh my, oh my, what’s this? Why so aggressive? Something happen?”
Zekiel, of course, must’ve heard the rumor that I came out of Cassian’s room last night. He nudged at me with a tone that was clearly fishing for a reaction.
“Nothing happened.”
“Grandpa Michael said you’ve fallen hard for Cassian.”
Cough, cough. I nearly choked on the French toast I was chewing and almost sprayed pieces of it all over Zekiel’s face. I barely managed to thump my chest and gulp down some water, and of course, Zekiel took my reaction as proof of guilt and flashed me another one of those wicked grins. We hadn’t known each other long, but I already wanted to wipe that smug look off his face—with a fist, maybe. Something like that.
Then again, Michael’s words suddenly came to mind.
“Cassian flirts with anyone and just tosses them aside after.”
“Oh, that? It’s actually not true. Cassian’s never shown interest in anyone. Sure, there were a few people who tried to confess to him, but… he probably didn’t even consider them. That old man likes to joke around with his words. He might seem rough at first, but… he gradually opens up. He’s a kind person.”
Well, that much was true. With Cassian’s personality, it was hard to imagine him showing interest in anyone. I just kept stabbing my toast into the ketchup.
“Still, the fact that Cassian let you into his room—that’s like a miracle.”
“I told you, nothing happened.”
Even if it was kind of confidential, both he and I had things we wanted to keep hidden, so I really didn’t want to bring up that night. And it wasn’t like anything happened anyway—I just collapsed after Cassian found me in that cave-like place. That’s all.
And honestly, I didn’t want to dig into whatever it was he was trying to hide, or whether he knew my real secret. The more I talked about it, the worse it would be for me. That space he wanted to keep hidden—whether it was a dungeon or not—didn’t even seem all that strange. All that was in there were maze-like stairs and air so cold and heavy it felt like a dragon’s sigh.
“Oh, oh, look—your partner’s here.”
I turned around, wondering who on earth he meant by “partner,” and there was Cassian, sitting down across from us with a cup of coffee in hand. The moment I saw his face, memories of last night flashed through my mind, sending a chill down my spine and making me shudder.