Close Out

It was one of the periodicals he subscribed to regularly — published just yesterday and delivered to the house that morning. It was also one of the magazines Liu and Yeehyeon enjoyed most, because it maintained a flexible perspective rather than asserting its authority through rigid orthodoxy. Having begun reading carefully from the "Editor's Preface" as he always did, Yeehyeon set the open magazine on his lap and took a slow, deep breath.

Although Hong Seon-yu's name — or the name SEONEW — was never mentioned anywhere in the text, the further he read, the more certain he became that the piece was aimed directly at him.

If that was true, and if the "reliable source" mentioned in the article was Liu... then Liu was now concerned about Hong Seon-yu moving his base of operations back to Korea — and in doing so, closing the distance between himself and Shushu.

Thinking of Liu's rough face as he came home late night after night — meeting with affiliated artists, important industry contacts, and clients to personally announce Phantom's expansion into New York — Yeehyeon glanced at the clock on the wall.

Just as he reached for his phone, he faintly heard a car entering the parking garage. Yeehyeon closed the magazine and set it on the table. Feeling impatient, he opened the door before Liu could even enter the password himself.

"......"

Through the pushed-open door, he saw Liu's face — flinching back slightly, just as he had been about to press the keypad.

"It feels nice, like you were waiting just for me to get back?"

Yeehyeon let his eyes sweep over Liu's body as he smiled playfully, then stepped back to let him in. After a brief kiss, he carefully approached Liu's back as he stepped into the studio.

"I heard from nuna. During the day... you had an accident."

"Ah..."

Liu's movements slowed as he set his briefcase and jacket down on the armchair in front of the sofa. He muttered, "That bastard, I told him not to say anything," and ran a hand over his eyebrow before quickly adopting a lighter expression and straightening up.

"And you heard that nothing major happened, right? It wasn't really an accident. I was just making a left turn to enter the straight road, and the other car was waiting to make a U-turn — so we were both moving very slowly. I'm fine, the other person is fine. No one was hurt...."

Then he placed a hand on Yeehyeon's shoulder and lowered his head to look closely at his face.

"So relax. Okay?"

Yeehyeon looked at Liu's face — as he tried to reassure him that the impact had been so minor the airbags hadn't even deployed — and did what Liu so often did with him: examined every feature carefully, one by one, as if searching for any sign of discomfort or endurance Liu might be hiding.

"Still... you should go to the hospital. They say you shouldn't take a traffic accident lightly just because there are no visible injuries...."

After finally extracting a promise that Liu would go for a checkup, Yeehyeon stroked the arm resting on his shoulder. Feeling the warmth of the skin beneath the sleeve rolled up to his elbow, he bit and released his lower lip several times — like someone about to raise a difficult subject.

"And... until you leave, I'd like you to travel with the driver."

As expected, Liu frowned with displeasure and averted his gaze. Yeehyeon firmly gripped his wrist.

"You've had so much on your mind lately... you're busy and exhausted... it's dangerous to drive yourself."

"......"

"I won't go out when Awi or the driver isn't here. So please don't worry about me... just agree to this..."

"Okay?" Yeehyeon added, taking hold of Liu near the waist. Liu looked down at the unusually firm expression on Yeehyeon's face — rare for someone who so rarely insisted on anything — for a long moment without speaking. He gently massaged Yeehyeon's neck with the hand resting on his shoulder, then slowly pulled him close and held him.

"You're the only one who looks out for me now, Seo Yeehyeon."

At the voice — hollow, as if leaking from an emptied interior — Yeehyeon moved his hand to Liu's back, stroking it soothingly as he wound himself around him.

"You know that's not true."

"......"

Liu said nothing, continuing to stroke Yeehyeon's neck as his gaze slowly drifted. It passed over the canvases of various sizes leaning against the wall with their backs turned, then stopped on a small framed piece on the sofa. It was a small work Suki Kim had gifted to Yeehyeon in Hong Kong.

After it was confirmed that Liu was a Ghost, his parents' divorce had proceeded quickly. During the two years that followed — while Liu lived with Ellen and Marcus — Suki Kim had not painted a single thing.

Liu had known, even then, that both his father and mother carried guilt of no small weight regarding the fact that he was a Ghost. They never openly showed distress in front of him, but a parent's emotions inevitably transfer to their child.

It was probably something close to the self-reproach that torments most parents of a sick child. The sense that everything was somehow their fault.

But their guilt, unintentionally, had also poisoned Liu's sense of self as a Ghost.

Am I sick? Is this a disease — am I a carrier threatening others? Is that why my parents feel sorry for me?

His father's maternal family wasn't the only issue. The power to alter the very essence of a human body might be seen as a special ability depending on one's interpretation, but to those who actually came into contact with that person, it was nothing more than a fear to be avoided, or at least an unsettling factor.

Whether he revealed his Ghost status or concealed it, he was destined to live a life set apart — even within Alpha-Omega society.

Perhaps out of guilt for her son, she had felt the need to sacrifice something. During the two years she spent in Boston after securing legal custody of Liu, she devoted herself entirely to him. Everyone around her — including Liu's father, who understood better than anyone what painting meant to her — tried to persuade her otherwise. But it was no use.

Portraits rendered only in line and empty space, using ink infused with color. Within their seemingly simple structure — almost like a child's careless drawing — lay a concentrated power that held the viewer captive. Like masters who have the courage to confront their naked selves and draw that image out from behind the mirror to offer it to the world, she needed no elaborate technique or embellishment to package herself.

Liu remembered it too. Starting with that piece, she had brought painting back into her life. Through those two years of blankness, she had come to know — not with her head but through time and through her body, slowly and completely — that without painting, she could not exist as a mother, as Suki Kim, as herself.

That work — a crucial turning point for her — now belonged to Yeehyeon, the artist behind Alienation, and hung there before Liu's eyes. And Yeehyeon himself, the creator of Alienation, was in his arms as his lover and as a victim of the Changing. The confluence of it all struck him as strangely profound, and Liu stroked Yeehyeon's hair with a quiet, bitter smile.

He felt as though all physical and mental energy had been cleanly exhausted — like returning to the exact point where he had first stood, after traveling a very long distance.

Rubbing his cheek against Yeehyeon's hair as it tickled near his lips, he cleared his throat and released him from his embrace.

"About the materials to send to Bali — I think I should be able to get them within two or three days. Marcus has been taking great care of it, so when I get to New York, I'll need to make time to visit Boston again and say hello."

Liu tried to lighten the mood by playfully kneading Yeehyeon's shoulders after pushing him back slightly, but Yeehyeon didn't return the smile. Avoiding Yeehyeon's gaze, which was still cautiously studying his complexion, Liu rubbed his jaw and walked toward the kitchen area. It was barely a kitchen — just a simple setup, enough to wash cups and boil instant noodles. He opened the built-in refrigerator beside the sink, pulled out a beer, and asked Yeehyeon if he wanted one — but Yeehyeon only shook his head.

He couldn't bring himself to look back. Standing in front of the refrigerator, drinking his beer, he was gripped by the anxiety that Yeehyeon's careful, attentive gaze would eventually detect that he was hiding something — that his recent exhaustion wasn't just due to a hectic schedule and friction with the people around him.

Fingers that moved with a ticklish softness settled on his shoulders. In the space where Yeehyeon couldn't see, Liu's pupils trembled imperceptibly. Lately, every time Yeehyeon silently watched him or softly called his name, he felt the dizzying sensation of falling.

"Director."

"......"

"That isn't urgent — you can prepare it slowly after you get to New York."

He lightly placed his hand over Yeehyeon's hand resting on his shoulder. Holding onto his fingertips, he turned to face him. Even that much required courage.

Looking down at Yeehyeon's face — worrying about him while being cut off from information he should naturally have received, completely unaware of the situation he was in — Liu ran his tongue over his lower lip.

He had believed he could push things forward much more shamelessly. When he was about to leave for Chicago, he had believed he could ignore all guilt and remorse at least until he set foot in New York with Yeehyeon. It had all been to keep him.

But whether the shell surrounding his conscience wasn't as thick as he'd hoped, or perhaps because anxiety had simply taken hold as the moment of revelation drew closer and he couldn't predict Yeehyeon's reaction — lately, despite extreme fatigue, he had become so hypersensitive he could barely sleep.

He set the beer down on the narrow countertop and took both of Yeehyeon's hands, pulling him close with arms spread wide. They played at pushing and pulling their interlocked hands like a contest of strength. Only then did Yeehyeon's face soften a little into a smile, and Liu looked down at it before pressing kisses to his lips and cheeks.

Yeehyeon was not the type to utter words of love while wallowing in sweet sentimentality, relying on feelings that hadn't yet fully solidified.

But what he loved was Liu Weikun — the Liu Weikun who had not Changed him. The moment he learned the truth, that Liu Weikun would no longer be the one Yeehyeon thought he knew.

Every time Liu became conscious of that fact, it felt as though the rope barely supporting him beneath his feet was thinning to a thread.

His smoking increased. His drinking increased. He had told Yeehyeon it was just a minor fender bender to reassure him — and in terms of the accident's scale, that was true — but it was also a clear mistake that would never have happened under normal circumstances.

The problem was that, just as his parents' guilt had transferred and sickened his Ghost self, his own anxiety was now quietly seeping into Yeehyeon, coloring him gray.

Every time they kissed, every time they held each other, every time he reached a peak as an Alpha inside him — a peak he had never felt through anyone else — he felt simultaneously terrified that this might be the last time... and an impulse to completely derail, to confess everything to him, bare his throat, and accept whatever judgment he passed.

"Lately, why haven't you been painting?"

"Pardon?"

Liu gestured with his chin toward the inverted canvases stacked behind Yeehyeon.

"It doesn't seem like you've been making much progress."

"......"

Yeehyeon moved his lips slightly and lowered his gaze.

"Weren't there a lot of things you wanted to paint as soon as you got back?"

"It's just... maybe because my mind has been a bit scattered. But I'm still doing drawings."

Liu returned to the sofa, rummaged through the jacket draped over the chair, and took out a pack of cigarettes. He pulled one out, lit it, and took a deep drag, exhaling a long stream of smoke while staring down at somewhere on the floor. Yeehyeon's feet, clad in indoor leather slippers, came into view.

"Do you want to go?"

"Pardon?"

"Paris."

"......"

The question was asked so casually, so matter-of-factly, that Yeehyeon paused and studied Liu's face for a moment, wondering if he had misheard. From Liu's expressionless profile as he smoked, he could read no intention or emotion whatsoever.

How did he know? When did he find out? And even if he had found out — why was he asking whether Yeehyeon wanted to go? Many questions surfaced in his mind, but they were all secondary and superfluous now that Liu had brought it up. If he already knew that Yuni had received an offer from The Hands, it wouldn't be strange for him to know they had made an offer to Yeehyeon as well.

Instead of pursuing irrelevant questions, Yeehyeon stepped closer to Liu and shook his head firmly.

"No."

"......"

Eyes that seemed unusually pale today slowly focused on Yeehyeon's. Liu had asked if he wanted to go — but his eyes were saying he hoped he wouldn't.

"I already have a contract with a capable gallerist."

Yeehyeon let out a small laugh and took the cigarette from Liu's fingers. He looked up to meet Liu's gaze as he held his waist and looked down, and took a deep drag. Liu's long, straight fingers slowly stroked the lips that were clumsily exhaling smoke.

Yeehyeon handed the cigarette back to Liu, whose lips looked drier than usual, then hooked a finger into the loose knot of his tie and gently pulled. He worked the remaining buttons of the shirt — already undone at the top — free, and buried his lips at the base of Liu's firm nape.

To get a better look at Yeehyeon's face as he slipped his hand inside the shirt, stroking bare skin and kissing various spots along his neck, Liu bent his head deeply. Stroking the small head, he kissed his hair and murmured heavily.

"We both need haircuts."

"......"

"I don't think we'll find time. Why don't we wait until we get to New York... and get them cut together then?"

Yeehyeon rubbed his lips against Liu's rough, end-of-day jaw, then pushed his shirt off his shoulders and nodded.

The shirt, sleeves flipped inside out, fell away behind him. Liu, bare-chested now, pulled up the hem of Yeehyeon's T-shirt and kissed him. He tossed the removed shirt roughly toward the sofa, then chuckled as he patted down Yeehyeon's hair — tousled where the neckline had passed over his head — and ran his fingers through it.

Liu held Yeehyeon's face in his gaze as he smiled back, then slowly slid his hand down the length of him, tracing over skin from his hair to his neck, his shoulder, down his arm to his wrist.

His own hands were dry, but intertwined with Yeehyeon's warm, faintly damp fingers, he gently led him toward the bedroom. Liu closed the door, shutting out the studio lights. In the dim twilight, only the white sheets on the bed reflected a faint glow. Normally, seeing that would have prompted some suggestive joke about it being a room with obvious purpose — but even that thought didn't cross his mind right now.

Sitting on the edge of the tall bed, relying on the muted light filtering in from the garden-facing window, Liu gently placed a hand against Yeehyeon's cheek. It was as if all surrounding sound had been sucked away. The silence was like that of a tomb. Only the gaze of Yeehyeon looking straight at him and the warmth of his skin against his palm felt truly alive.

No kissing, no touching. Yeehyeon, who had until now been overwhelmed just by receiving what Liu gave him as he led the way, tilted his head and came forward first. Tracing the clean lines of Yeehyeon's face with his fingertips as he lowered his eyelids to look at Liu's lips, Liu parted his own in response.

Pressing their lips together as if to fill the gap between them, firmly enough to distort their shape, then pulling back — their dry lips clung together and separated slowly. In the unnervingly quiet room, the sound of friction made by the kiss was unusually sharp, grazing his hearing.

Spreading his hands to cup the space around Yeehyeon's ear, tangling his fingers in the strands of hair, Liu tilted his head for a deeper kiss. The wet sound of their mouths gradually permeated the dry stillness.

After exchanging countless broken kisses, the two men removed their pants while sitting and moved onto the bed, leaning sideways against each other, stroking each other's bare bodies.

Without pausing the kissing, they used their hands to pull down each other's underwear. They stroked gently from the root outward with palms wrapped around each other's cocks, drawing out arousal. Their bodies, responding to each other's pheromones faster than before, grew hot in an instant.

"......"

"......"

In the silence and darkness, Liu pressed down firmly on Yeehyeon's shoulder. Yeehyeon knew what that meant. After holding Liu's gaze for a moment, he changed the direction of his head and lay down. The underwear that had been half-removed slid completely off, and the two buried their mouths between each other's legs without hesitation.

Liu's cock was already hard by then. Just seeing its distinct shape and breathing in the sexual scent of him made Yeehyeon's insides grow urgent and his breath falter. Liu pulled him close, cupped his firm ass, and filled his mouth with the smooth, warm head. Lying on his side, he traced the curve of taut abdominal muscle under smooth skin, felt the line of Yeehyeon's raised right knee, brushed his fingertips through the coarse hair, and savored every part of his beautiful body with his own.

"Haa, hah... ngh..."

Liu’s fingers, skillfully sucking and pressing against Yeehyeon's cock, moved down between his cheeks, scratched along the cleft, and circled slowly around the entrance to his hole. Yeehyeon spat him out and clung tighter to Liu's body as if holding on for dear life. The slow rotation of the fingers gently digging in and stretching the entrance made his hips twist. He rubbed his face against the rigid cock — already slick with thick pre-cum — and stuck out his tongue to lick up the heavy length of it.

The hands stroking and caressing each other felt less like acts of lust than like a desperate attempt to feel something invisible through touch. An effort to find in each other's bodies enough stimulation to numb an anxiety whose origin neither of them could name.

To confirm, and to be confirmed. That they were still by each other's side.

They pressed their lips wherever the other's scent intensified, breathing each other in, slowly revealing their own depths. Even while pushing their cocks against each other's faces and sucking on them, they seemed — if anything — unconcerned with the concept of sex itself. As natural as kissing lips to lips. They spread their legs and lowered their hips, rocking to go deeper into each other's mouths.

Liu withdrew his fingers from Yeehyeon's wet hole and sat up. His cock was throbbing now, thoroughly slicked with pre-cum. He shifted position for penetration, settling between Yeehyeon's legs, and pressed down on his chest to lay him flat.

The timing was earlier than usual, but every muscle in his body was already wound tight from fighting the urge to push inside. Yeehyeon's wet entrance was also fully ready to receive him. Feeling Yeehyeon's pheromones thick around him — wrapping so densely it was as though he were being drawn in and swallowed whole — Liu closed his eyes and trembled slightly, surrendering himself to that pull completely.

From the first time he had entered this body, the Golden's control had slipped from him — but with each time they came together, as Yeehyeon drew closer to being an Omega, the density of the pheromones Yeehyeon emitted grew so thick that Liu could no longer tell whether he was turning Yeehyeon into an Omega or whether Yeehyeon was turning him into an Alpha.

It was exactly as described in the diary: being dragged along helplessly, as if his wrists were tied to the back of a carriage pulled by six powerful horses.

Looking down at the disheveled Yeehyeon, he wedged his knees under Yeehyeon's thighs. He leaned forward, pushed the hair back from his face, then drew his full lower lip between his own and sucked achingly.

Yeehyeon, letting out sweet moans as he cupped and stroked Liu's cheek, stopped Liu's hand as he positioned himself against the entrance to his hole.

"I'll... be on top," he managed.

"......"

Liu frowned, as if doubting whether he had heard correctly. Then, shaking his head as if in disbelief, he gave a low laugh.

"Is this because of the accident earlier today?"

"......"

"I told you, I'm perfectly fine."

Yeehyeon pushed away Liu's chest as he tried to press forward.

"It's not entirely because of that... I just... want to do it. Are you against it?"

"There's no way I'd be against that. It's not that, but..."

Yeehyeon pushed Liu's hesitating shoulders and sat up. He cupped Liu's face, kissing his lips and cheeks, then whispered in his ear.

"In Hong Kong... the first time we did it. I'll do it like that time."

"......"

If Yeehyeon wanted it, there was no reason to refuse. Liu pulled back and wrapped his arms around Yeehyeon's waist. Yeehyeon straddled Liu's thighs on his knees, wrapped one arm around his neck, and with the other hand clasping Liu's cock at the base, slowly lowered his hips.

As his hand slid down Yeehyeon's smooth, dry back, tracing the curve of his ass and grasping its full, fleshy weight, Liu buried his forehead in the chest before him, lips parting at the pressure of being pulled inside and squeezed by Yeehyeon's body.

He fought the urge to thrust his hips up and drive into him all at once, to grip him and shake him loose. Instead, he bit at skin across Yeehyeon's chest and neck, sinking his teeth in at spot after spot. He took the small, hardened nipple into his mouth and sucked deeply until his cheek hollowed — and felt Yeehyeon's insides clench, pulling his cock deeper.

At the suffocating fullness crammed tight inside him and the crushing pressure squeezing him out, the two let out moans, arms wound around each other, rubbing bare skin together. Yeehyeon stopped lowering his hips, leaving only a small portion at the base, and Liu began to thrust up against him instead.

Not quickly — but deeply enough to fill Yeehyeon completely, letting their most vulnerable and sensitive places press fully together. The movements were accompanied by quiet moans that sounded almost like admiration, and the slow push and pull of it felt like a process of confirmation — finding each other through the point of contact. Careful and thorough, as if neither of them wanted to miss even the smallest sensation.

As Liu's cock dragged out and drove back in with each thrust, lifting Yeehyeon's whole body, Yeehyeon wrapped his arms around Liu's neck and lowered his head, a trembling breath spilling from his lips. The wet, slick sounds of their bodies — his length dragging against the tight heat inside Yeehyeon, growing wetter with each pass — clung to their sweat-slicked skin, obscene and impossible to ignore.

Following Liu's rhythm, Yeehyeon slowly rocked his hips back and forth to intensify the stimulation, then leaned in and kissed near Liu's ear.

"Do it for me..."

Yeehyeon didn't name what he wanted, but Liu needed no object.

Liu sank his teeth into Yeehyeon's collarbone — demanding to be knotted — and pulled his slender waist tighter. As the pleasure of each thrust grew sharper, Yeehyeon clutched Liu's head and bit down on his lower lip.

"Back then... in Hong Kong. You lost control and ended up knotting, didn't you? Without Awi even knowing."

"......"

Yeehyeon remembered Liu afterward — apologizing again and again, forcing himself to withdraw while still hard, trying to scrape the slick from inside him. And even now, Liu was looking at him with that same expression: clear, hollow eyes, like a helpless and fragile boy.

Yeehyeon arched his back and hips, stimulating Liu inside him, and stroked his hair.

"Was that the first time?"

In the darkness, Liu slowly nodded. Yeehyeon stroked the broad shoulders that had gone docile — like a wounded animal whimpering from a deep injury — and kissed him. The large man before him was indescribably lovely.

"Do it for me. Like that time...."

If previous knotting had been an experience of intense, burning heat that dissolved reason and set his body on fire, this time the pulse of the knotting struck his inner walls and resonated through his entire body with such clarity that it felt as though he had entered Liu's heart itself.

In a terrifying sense of unity — as if his own blood were circulating through the other man's heart — Yeehyeon reached climax several times without even releasing. They held each other and mingled their tongues and shared their scents until the lingering pleasure completely faded. It felt as if there was nothing left to share between them.