Passion: Diaphonic Symphonia Novel - Chapter 71

Ilay, who had gripped his member just before climax, lightly kissed its tip and narrowed his eyes. And then he quietly said,

“Listen carefully and nod your head, Tae-yi. First, if another guy touches your crotch again and you stay still, I’ll get rid of him first, then make sure your dick can never be used by anyone but me for the rest of your life. If you want to walk around with a dildo inside you and a chastity belt on whenever you’re not with me, then feel free to do whatever you want with your body.”

Jeong Taeui, who had been listening to his words in a daze, his body burning with pleasure suddenly turned into a torture of endurance, soon turned pale and his eyes widened in horror. But Ilay’s words didn’t stop there.

“Second, always prioritize yourself in any situation. If you get even a single scratch on your body by foolishly trying to help some other guy, that guy you tried to help will end up in a much worse state, and I’ll make you cry and regret it until that wound heals without a single scar.”

“What…! How do you know if I’ll get hurt…! No, more than that, a dil-chas—…!! …There aren’t that many guys who touch other people’s crotches, and what if I accidentally brush against someone in a public bath or a pool?!”

Jeong Taeui sat up abruptly and shouted.

Cold sweat ran down his back. Many of the things this man said, even those that should have been jokes, were not jokes at all, so he couldn’t let a single word go unheard.

“Of course, it can’t be helped if you get hurt living a normal life. And it’s possible your lower body might accidentally brush against someone in a crowded place. I will judge the degree of intent. …You understand, don’t you?”

“Where is such tyranny! How can anyone live like—”

However, Jeong Taeui’s protest, shouted at the top of his lungs, didn’t continue to the end.

The hand gripping the base of his crotch tightened. The tongue that licked up the glans, and at the same time, the fingertips that precisely found and scratched his sensitive spot inside, poured oil onto the wick that was already burning down to its end.

“Hey, what are I—”

“You just have to nod your head. —You understood what I said, Tae-yi.”

Even when Jeong Taeui pleaded tearfully, it didn’t work. Only Ilay’s resolute questioning came back.

Jeong Taeui vaguely felt that nodding his head would be like digging his own grave, so he looked at Ilay with uneasy eyes. Then the hand touching him below tightened even more.

“Agh…, wait, wait…”

It was a dizzying sensation now, but a little more and it felt like it would cross into painful territory. Jeong Taeui became desperate.

He hastily placed his hand over Ilay’s, but Ilay only stroked his member a couple of times as if urging an answer. Then he suddenly lowered his voice and whispered smoothly.

“What’s wrong? There’s no problem at all. Just don’t let other guys carelessly touch your body, and don’t get involved in dangerous things with other guys. In fact, it’s a very simple matter that you don’t even need to worry about, hmm?”

“Th-that’s true, but…”

But the conditions attached to those words were too terrifying. Just imagining it made the blood drain from his head.

Ilay gazed intently at Jeong Taeui, who was nervously mouthing words, then raised an eyebrow.

“Then think about it some more. While you’re thinking, I’ll take care of my business.”

Speaking in a nonchalant tone, Ilay plunged his fingers into Jeong Taeui’s body and stirred them around a few more times. A blush-inducing sound came from below, which was starting to get slick.

But even before he could blush at that sound.

“…Wait!! I’ll do it, I’ll do it! I’ll do as you say!! So, …—!!”

“Think about it more slowly. Yes, think about it for ten more minutes or so. That way I can savor it at my leisure.”

As Jeong Taeui almost screamed, then swallowed his breath, Ilay slowly traced the already wet area below with the tip of his tongue.

“Actually, I’ve been craving it for a while. It’s so deliciously engorged and twitching, I wonder how fresh it tastes.”

His low laugh tickled his lower body. Even that was hard to bear, so Jeong Taeui chose to bend his body and hug his head instead.

‘This bastard, just bury his face in there and suffocate to death.’

He cursed inwardly with tears streaming down his face, but soon he didn’t even have the luxury to think such thoughts.

‘I don’t wish to never see you again in this land.’

The old man smiled generously and said quietly.

Christoph stood stiffly before the old man, his head bowed, looking only at the old man’s chest. He couldn’t meet his gaze.

From long ago, Christoph couldn’t look at him directly. He was always a difficult person. Someone he shouldn’t approach or look at carelessly. Even his mother dared not speak his name; he was such a person.

But Christoph liked the old man. He respected and adored him. As if he had found a religion.

‘I always thought it would be good if you could roam freely outside for as long as you wish, and whenever you grow weary, come here to rest for a while. Where else would suit you as well as this place?’

That’s not true. This place always felt uncomfortable, like clothes that didn’t fit. Like anywhere else, this place wasn’t comfortable.

But the old man said it suited him here.

‘For the short time remaining, how about lending that child your strength?’

When the old man spoke quietly, Christoph hesitated and lifted his gaze. From his chest to his wrinkled neck, his smiling mouth, his slightly bent but not unsightly nose, then his eyes with laugh lines etched outwards.

Even though the sun had set and the sky was already turning indigo, the old man’s eyes shone clear, a golden-brown, as if bathed in sunlight. Eyes that seemed to reflect the dirtiness of the person facing him.

Christoph lowered his head again.

The old man was speaking. To help Richard.

He was saying to do so to lift the expulsion order from Tarten.

‘When I retire and become an old man quietly aging, come visit me sometimes and be my companion.’

In the old man’s calm, smiling words, a faint scent of death lingered. It was a distant, hazy, and peaceful scent.

But the old man’s time already flowed at a different speed and texture than a young man’s.

Now, the old man was merely warming his fingertips by the last embers of charcoal, almost burned to white ash. Then, at some point, he would rise from that spot and depart. To a solitary resting place no one could follow.

Christoph parted his lips slightly but no words escaped. He didn’t know what to say himself.

The old man gazed at Christoph. In his eyes were countless things Christoph couldn’t fathom.

The old man suddenly slowly raised his hand. And took Christoph’s hand.

The moment the wrinkled hand rested on his, he instinctively flinched at the unfamiliar sensation. He barely managed not to pull away, but the old man, though not gripping tightly, also did not let go of his visibly recoiling hand.

‘Christoph. You are my beloved child. In this Tarten, no one is unloved. You are my beautiful and beloved child. I raised Tarten solely for you all, and without you, Tarten has no meaning.’

The old man whispered.

He sometimes spoke like that.

It was hard to describe exactly, but it was the kind of words that squeezed your heart. Words that somehow made it hard to breathe, that made his heart ache, but weren’t unpleasant, he would sometimes say them.

He wanted to hear anything the old man said. He wanted to do anything the old man wished. Then Christoph would also be happy.

And yet.

Christoph couldn’t bring himself to nod his head.

Deep inside, his body was still stiff. His mother’s voice, like a tearing scream heard over the phone, still clung to his ears and wouldn’t let go. So his body wouldn’t move.

‘You will surely get along well with that child too. …And if that happens, things will change from now on.’

What?

Christoph didn’t know what would change. But he couldn’t ask. All his attention was focused on the unfamiliar warmth of the hand the old man was holding. He wanted to pull away immediately and shake off that strange sensation. Though he didn’t dislike it, it was unfamiliar, and he wanted to escape from the foreignness of another person’s skin, a sensation he wasn’t accustomed to.

‘Christoph. Even after you leave this place, will you sometimes visit me?’

The old man said.

But Christoph could no longer return to Tarten. That’s what he had decided himself. So he couldn’t answer.

But if that were the case, it would be good to say no, yet he couldn’t say that either.

In one ear, a woman was sobbing and wailing. But in the other, the old man was quietly whispering.

The sounds interfered with each other, making both inaudible.

His head began to ache. His heart pounded, and he felt the blood drain from his body. As if his body wasn’t his own.

Cold sweat seeped from his back. A sensation of being controlled by something not himself slowly filled his body. It was a feeling he had experienced several times before. A horrifyingly unpleasant one.

The old man silently watched Christoph, who finally didn’t answer, then quietly smiled and gently patted Christoph’s hand.

‘Rest now. It wouldn’t do to take away your time to think slowly on your own.’

The old man stood up and turned to leave.

He grew anxious. He wanted to grab him and say something. That he would do as he wished, that he would obey his every word, he wanted to say that.

But his cold legs wouldn’t move.

In the end, Christoph couldn’t utter a single word, and with the old man’s benevolent smile as the last sight, the door quietly closed.

The door closed. Before his eyes. Quietly. Firmly.

From outside the door, he heard the old man briefly speaking with a familiar voice. Then his footsteps grew distant.

Soon after, someone knocked on the door, but the sound was both heard and unheard. Regrow and Jeong Taeui entered after opening the door, but it was the same.

In that space where the old man’s footsteps had vanished, Christoph remained alone, standing stiffly.

—Christoph. You are my beloved child. …You are my beautiful and beloved child.

Suddenly.

The old man’s low words finally.

Only then, belatedly, did they reach Christoph’s brain.

Suddenly his heart ached. A dull throb, it contracted as if squeezing blood, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Thump, thump, his heart beat painfully.

Christoph stood up. And quickly moved his steps.

He had to follow the old man. To catch up to him as quickly as possible, and tell him. That he would obey his words.

It was only a matter of a few days. He could help that guy. For less than a month, he could endure being around that guy. After that time passed, he wouldn’t see him again.

He had no lingering attachment to Tarten. Even if he could never return here, he didn’t care. No, he rather didn’t want to return.

But for the sake of the elder.

If he could visit him, be his walking companion, and his confidant.

He could do that much.

Christoph went straight to the main building. To the old man’s room in the main building.

He probably wouldn’t be able to say anything again if he faced the old man now, but the old man would surely understand Christoph’s intentions and nod with a generous smile.

Thinking that, and recalling that smile, Christoph rushed to the innermost part of the main building, the old man’s room, which was the most comfortable and quiet in the mansion.

“…—.”

But no one was there. The old man was probably stopping somewhere else on his way back.

He could wait for a moment, but he felt needlessly anxious. He wanted to say it as soon as possible. That he would obey the elder’s words.

Where had he gone? …Right. He might have stopped by the West Wing and looked around while he was there. In that case—it might be Richard. Lately, the elder had often spent time with Richard, who was almost certainly his successor, teaching him various things. So he might be in Richard’s room, talking with him.

He didn’t want to go to that unpleasant guy’s room, but to obey the elder’s words, he would have to face him often for a while anyway.