Worry

Waking up after a deep, motionless sleep always felt abrupt. As if I had been suddenly pushed from one world into another in an instant, I always needed a moment after waking to gather my thoughts about where I was.

"Did you sleep well?"

"......"

Lying on my side, I slowly blinked, eyes cast downward toward my chest, and raised my head from the pillow at the voice coming from above me.

"Mm..."

My throat was still tight, preventing me from producing a smooth sound. My eyes, darting around in confusion, asked the question on my behalf: how was he here?

I had clearly woken up in my own bed downstairs, and yet I was also nestled in his bare arms.

He had stacked two pillows and added his own arm folded beneath his head, lying on his side facing me, with his other arm resting lightly over my shoulder, his hand gently stroking my cheek.

"You burrowed in like a little mole. I was even debating whether I should let you suckle on my nipple."

He smiled, curled slightly above me and looking down from his higher position. Seeing how tightly my upper body was pressed against his, I realized his words weren't entirely an exaggeration this time.

"When... here... how..."

Still not fully grasping the situation, my questions came out in broken fragments.

"Why didn't you text me?"

"I definitely sent it before I went to sleep..."

I rolled onto my stomach and propped myself up on my elbows, roughly raking my fingers through my tangled hair, fumbling around the pillow for my phone. I picked up my phone — precariously balanced on the edge of the bed — and unlocked it. The messaging app appeared immediately on the screen.

[today work here stop now done eeeeew fu]

I must have fallen asleep with the phone in my hand, because the typo-riddled message was still sitting unsent in the input field.

"Ah..."

I let out a groan mixed with defeat, swept my fallen hair back, and tucked it behind my ear. He took the phone from my hand, read the message on the screen, and burst out laughing.

I was slowly starting to come to my senses. His form, lying in bed laughing in the morning's natural light, was gradually coming into focus. A moment ago, waking up to find him there had flustered me so completely that I hadn't had the presence of mind to actually register him. This was the first time I had seen him in bed when we weren't in the middle of foreplay, sex, or the quiet after.

"Oh? Why — don't send that."

I reached out to stop his hand as he tapped the screen, worried he was about to send the abandoned, typo-filled message, but he leisurely shifted his body to evade me.

"It would be a waste to just delete something this cute. This one's going in my collection."

Lying on his back toward the ceiling, he handed the phone back to me with a satisfied look, then began toying with my earlobe as I lay face-down beside him.

"Still, it's a shame. I wish I could have seen Seo Yeehyeon struggling to text me even though he was half-asleep."

These expressions of affection — impossible to call anything other than love — made my spine tingle from the first moments of morning. Starting the day immediately enveloped in such affection the moment I opened my eyes was... not good for my heart.

"Did we sleep together? Or did you just arrive a little while ago?"

I carefully placed my hand over the fingers touching my earlobe and asked.

"It seemed like the lights went out around three, and when no message came for a long time after that, I came down to check."

Then the sensation I had during the night — of someone fixing my bedding and pulling me close — wasn't a dream. It was the feeling of him getting into bed. I let my hand slide off his and traced the clearly defined muscles of his arm, my voice coming out soft with regret.

"You should have woken me up..."

"How could I wake someone who worked until they collapsed?"

"Still... it's a shame."

"......"

His hand, which had been at my ear, shifted to cup my cheek broadly, his gaze asking what, exactly, was such a shame. His large palm — big enough to cover my entire face — always felt good, and I instinctively rubbed my cheek against it like a calm cat or dog.

"It was the first time we slept together, and I didn't even know..."

His lips curved softly. The affection in his gaze as he looked at me was more than enough to feel, even through his eyes alone. For someone like me, those expressions were perhaps easier to understand and more trustworthy than words.

He gently rubbed the surface of my lips with his thumb and spoke.

"I'm glad you feel that way, but if Seo Yeehyeon had woken up, the chances of us actually succeeding in sleeping together again would have been pretty low."

Last weekend, on the way home after drinking sake together, he had suggested we just sleep next to each other without having sex — but in the end we hadn't kept that promise.

It was an unreasonable plan from the start. We had spent that day sharing deeper, more meaningful conversations than usual and having a wonderful time, and the thrilling, suggestive tension that had been building between us since the izakaya had reached its peak by the time we lay down side by side, making it impossible to ignore each other's skin and warmth and try to sleep.

As if no such promise had ever existed, the moment we stepped through the front door we rushed toward each other and started kissing, deep and urgent — as if the playful kisses we'd shared hiding behind a car in the alley had done nothing to satisfy us.

He had already stripped me halfway out of my clothes at the entrance. I too wanted his bare body and slid my hands under his shirt, digging into his shoulders and chest.

Anyone who had witnessed us that night would have laughed, wondering why we had bothered resolving anything when we gave in before even reaching the bedroom.

As the certainty of our feelings for each other deepened, my actions in bed had grown bolder. The shyness rooted in my fundamental nature still lingered, but I found myself kissing him first without hesitation, wrapping my arms around him, no longer flinching at letting him see me spread open or trembling with pleasure.

Another change was that the sex with him — once filled with raw, intense, purely physical stimulation — had become sweet as well.

The exchange of emotions carried such force that it seemed to grant legitimacy to every act we shared. When lovemaking became not just a release of desire but an expression of affection, even a simple kiss felt different from before.

It wasn't that my desire arose in a time and place where he happened to be present. The desire materialized because he was the one in front of me. That day too, we stayed tangled together until the early summer sun began casting a bluish light.

The next day, I had woken up in his bed as usual, but the space beside me was empty. A note on his pillow said he had gone to a brunch meeting at a VIP client's invitation. This, then, was truly the first time we had woken up together.

"Maybe it was in your sleep, but you were mumbling and burrowing into my arms... for a moment I thought about waking you up right then."

He tapped the tip of my nose with the thumb that had been rubbing my lips and laughed. If he had, I probably wouldn't have been able to sleep properly from the tension — but I still kept regretting not having been conscious for the time we had lain there together, trying to sleep.

"If we... have sex... does that really mean we can't stay together until morning?"

"......"

Seeing the slight flutter in his eyelids, I suddenly realized how foolish my question was and had the strong urge to bury my face in the pillow. As expected, he let out a low chuckle a moment later. And this time, he cupped my face with both hands.

"That's not the case at all. As you know, I've been a bit busy lately... so there are many times I have to leave early in the morning. I do have a fair amount of stamina, but considering our recent frequency, I do have to pay some attention to sleep."

His gentle explanation only made my face burn hotter.

"I guess... I'm not fully awake yet. I'm sorry for asking something so strange."

After giving my apologetic face a thorough, slightly exasperated kneading, he sat up and lightly kissed my forehead. Then he leaned his upper body over my prone back and rubbed the tip of his nose against my ear.

"I'll get breakfast ready, so would you mind taking care of the garden in the meantime?"

Truly, this was a start to a day that placed an immense strain on my heart.