CI 1.1

‘Where am I?’

Early Monday morning. Yeo-il, waking up in brilliant sunlight, had this thought first. An unfamiliar ceiling appeared before his eyes, and the feeling of the undulating mattress behind his back felt strange.

This was definitely not his home. Though Yeo-il had only moved in two days ago and was still getting used to his new place, there was no way this endlessly wide ceiling belonged to his ten-pyeong studio apartment.

It didn’t seem to be a hotel either. It was a very spacious and grand house belonging to a stranger.

‘What happened yesterday?’

Judging by his hangover, he had definitely drunk a lot. Sunday night, feeling like he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all, Yeo-il had gone to a pub near his home. He remembered someone approaching him while he was sipping his drink alone, but everything after that was hazy.

‘Did I drink with a stranger and then sleep at their place? I’m really out of my mind.’

It was baffling why he’d done something now that he hadn’t even done as a clueless twenty-year-old. He knew he was feeling down, but apparently his state was worse than he thought.

The fortunate thing was that there was still time before work. The wall clock showed 7 o’clock.

Yeo-il tried to get up quickly to return home. No, he tried to get up but hunched over clutching his waist. It was a strange pain he had never felt before. Not only was his lower back throbbing, but his buttocks were sore and his legs were trembling.

‘What on earth is this….’

Now he noticed that he was completely naked. With an ominous feeling brushing his mind, Yeo-il looked down at his body.

It was quite a sight. His collarbone and chest were covered in red marks, with bite marks and hand prints. Around his lower abdomen, something whitish had dried up, though he didn’t want to think too deeply about what it might be.

‘No, it can’t be.’

At that moment, he heard a “Phuuu” sound of someone exhaling heartily beside him. The realization that he was lying in bed with someone else sent chills up his spine.

‘I’m going crazy, seriously.’

Glancing slightly toward the foot of the bed, he saw long, firm calves. Even in his unconscious state, his sexual orientation had apparently remained clear, as he hadn’t gotten involved with a woman.

After mentally cursing about five hundred times, he looked further up to see a man lying face down. Even at first glance, his chest seemed nearly twice the size of Yeo-il’s, and his forearms were similar to his thighs.

But he didn’t look bulky. His frame was well-balanced and broad. From his wide back to his shoulders, muscles were defined everywhere without exception.

Racking his brain, Yeo-il remembered that this man was not only built like that but also quite handsome. He could almost recall the prominent nose bridge and a firm jawline, and the way he smiled slyly, crinkling his deep eyes.

‘That’s not the point… what the hell is that?’

What shocked Yeo-il was the drawing, no, the tattoo on the man’s body. A bamboo forest covered his back, and sitting squarely in it was a tiger. Just making eye contact with that tiger on his back was enough to make Yeo-il’s knees weak.

From his shoulder to his arm, something that looked like a snake or a dragon was winding around. Fashion tattoos might be common these days, but this was clearly no ordinary tattoo.

‘Could he be a gangster? Last night, with that gangster, I… No way. We probably just slept in the same bed.’

Just because they were naked lying side by side didn’t necessarily mean they had done that kind of thing. Yeo-il, who had no proper experience, couldn’t have hooked up with a man he’d never met before, especially one who looked like a gangster.

‘Maybe I took off my clothes because I got hot while sleeping. The red marks on my body, well, perhaps I got into a fight with that gangster while drunk.’

If he had fought someone of that size, he would have woken up in a hospital bed rather than here, but Yeo-il desperately tried to rationalize.

As he carefully got up to avoid waking the sleeping tiger and put his feet on the floor, Yeo-il almost screamed. The pain shooting up his waist was a problem, but the sticky liquid trickling down between his buttocks was an even bigger issue.

‘Damn it…’

He could guess the identity of that fluid without having to touch or smell it. At that moment, fragments of last night’s memory brushed through his mind. Right on this bed, Yeo-il had been crying while clinging to someone’s neck.

<Haa, ah, it’s weird, it’s weird… this is weird…>

Someone as big as Namsan Mountain was on top of Yeo-il’s body. He wrapped his large hands around Yeo-il’s waist and kept saying dirty things.

<Our baby is so innocent. It’s not strange. You’re feeling good, aren’t you? Your lower part is squirming like crazy, and yet…> 

<Aaah, huh, huuh…!>

<Oh my, look at this, our baby’s skin is so thin that your stomach bulges up every time I thrust. Here, this place. My cock goes all the way to your navel…> 

‘Gah! Stop, stop thinking about it!’

As rather unpleasant dialogue was about to resurface, Yeo-il shook his head in horror. All the while, sticky fluid continued to drip from his buttocks.

Bewilderment and self-loathing rushed in all at once. He felt pathetic for not having the sense to use a condom despite being drunk, and worried if he had contracted some strange disease.

‘Later. Think about it later.’

There was no time to dawdle. As much as he wanted to shower first, there didn’t seem to be time for that. Before things got more complicated, he needed to leave the house while the tiger man was still asleep.

Looking around for something to clean himself with, Yeo-il picked up a white cloth piece from the floor and wiped away the liquid flowing from his buttocks. Even after wiping, the sticky substance kept endlessly flowing, taking longer than expected to clean up his groin.

‘Ugh, damn it.’

Coming out to the living room with muffled footsteps, he found it was also a mess. Yeo-il picked up what looked like a white t-shirt from the scattered clothes and put it on.

‘What? This isn’t mine.’

He thought it was definitely his since he had worn a white t-shirt last night, but the shirt that covered his body loosely seemed three sizes larger than his own clothes. It was probably the man’s shirt. Just as Yeo-il was looking around for his real t-shirt,

“Hmm? Baby, where are you…?”

A voice that sounded half-asleep came from inside the room. Yeo-il felt another ominous premonition.

‘What? Is he calling me?’

He thought he might be mistaken, but the low, resonant yet affectionate voice continued to say strange things.

“Living room? Wow. Is our baby an extremely diligent type? You woke up so early.”

There was no mistake. That gangster was calling Yeo-il “baby.” Horrified, Yeo-il couldn’t find his underwear and grabbed a pair of pants lying nearby to put on. Fortunately, the pants seemed to be his.

“Are you feeling okay? We should start with some hangover soup, right? We drank a lot. And while we were both wasted, we really went all out with our lovemaking.”

His chuckling sent chills down Yeo-il’s spine. It seemed like he had gotten involved with a madman. Luckily, he spotted both of his sneakers flipped over near the entrance, with his bag tossed aside next to them.

With trembling hands, Yeo-il grabbed his bag and took out his phone. While he opened the taxi app and entered the address of his new home that he wasn’t yet familiar with, the man rambled nonsensically about how the blood sausage at a nearby restaurant was firm and something about raccoon dog hats.

‘Should I just leave? Should I at least say goodbye?’

It would have been smoother to slip out while he was sleeping. He felt uneasy about ignoring the man who was talking to him and just leaving. After pressing the taxi call button, he hesitated for a moment when the man, having finished talking about blood sausage, said something that made him startle.

“Are you going to shower first? Wait a bit. We can shower together, why shower separately? It’s a waste of water and time. Hmm?”

Crazy. Terrified, Yeo-il flung open the front door and went outside. As the door slammed shut, he heard the man exclaim, “Huh?”

Once outside, he discovered that the man’s house was a detached home with a large garden. Afraid that he might follow him, Yeo-il practically ran across the garden, past bonsai pots and jars of homemade liquor.

‘Ugh, damn it.’

His knees were trembling, and all the joints in his lower body were screaming in pain. Gritting his teeth, he made it past the gate, and fortunately, the taxi had arrived. Yeo-il got in without looking back.

“Haah…”

He tried to calm his pounding heart. As he struggled to steady his rapid breathing, his phone suddenly beeped with a message alert.

[Where are you going in such a hurry? Not even having breakfast, so inconsiderate]

It was an unknown number, but it was clear who had sent it.

‘Did I even give that man my number?’

While he was dumbfounded at this unbelievable reality, two more texts arrived in a row.

[Ah, it’s Monday, our baby has to go to work]

[That’s right~ Go to work~~ I’ll call you around the time you get off ^^*]

‘^^*’, he was even doing this. This weirdo was no ordinary weirdo. Terrified, Yeo-il immediately blocked the number. Rubbing his goosebump-covered arms, he firmly resolved,

‘I don’t know anything. I can just pretend it never happened. Yes, nothing happened last night!’

His determination was strong, but his body seemed to remember exactly what had happened the night before. It sounds like a line from an erotic novel, but that was the reality.

When he arrived home and took off his pants, sticky fluid stretched between his buttocks and pant legs, as he hadn’t been able to put on underwear. He had tried to wipe it clean, but more had apparently leaked out while he was sitting.

Even while showering, something kept dripping from his lower opening, making it difficult to finish washing. Eventually, Yeo-il had to hold back tears as he inserted his fingers to scrape out the inside.

‘Is this all really that? How much did he ejaculate… No, that’s not it. I wasn’t in my right mind either.’

There was no time for prolonged lament. He didn’t want to be late on his first day of work. Yeo-il hurriedly put on his formal attire. A gray suit, white shirt, and blue tie.

It had seemed to fit much better when his mother had helped his dress, but perhaps because he had lost weight since then, today the clothes hung loosely on his. His already thin and long neck looked even more elongated, giving him a precarious appearance.

‘Can’t help it. I only have two sets of formal clothes anyway.’

Scanning his modest belongings, Yeo-il frowned upon discovering the large white t-shirt he had just taken off. He considered stuffing it in the trash but threw it in the laundry hamper instead, then firmly fixed his attorney badge to his jacket lapel before leaving home.

“Bae Ki-dong’s Law Firm” was a 7-minute walk from Yeo-il’s studio. It was the only law firm in Yongju, a city of 150.000 people, run by a former judge, it dominated the legal market in Yongju and was now Yeo-il’s workplace.

Although he had ended up here somewhat unexpectedly, this was where attorney Son Yeo-il would take his first steps. Yeo-il straightened his chest and opened the office door. Or rather, tried to open it, but was confused when the door just rattled without budging, apparently locked.

‘Why isn’t anyone here? It’s almost 9 o’clock…’