Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 25

Ling Xinlu, who had tilted his head back slightly and looked down at Yuri, smiled when their eyes met. It was a smile that overtly revealed his intention to tempt, fully aware of how he must appear. You can have me now. As much as you want. If not now, this chance won’t come again. Even if something upsetting happens, this is the only time you can possess this lovely person, even for a moment.

Yuri knew that smile was saying that. Ling Xinlu also knew that Yuri understood.

Yuri, who had been silently looking at him, slowly reached out his hand. The smile in Ling Xinlu’s eyes seemed to deepen.

He embraced Ling Xinlu’s head. He pulled the man, who was smiling so intoxicatingly, towards him. The warm and lovely body, obediently led into his hands.

And then.

Pop.

He pressed his lips with a sound. To his cheek. It’s a little hard.

“……..”

Ling Xinlu’s smile instantly vanished from his face. He looked at Yuri with a face like someone who had been gently smiling suddenly being hit with a chestnut. Yuri looked back at him for a moment, then, thinking “Is this not it?”, he tilted his head slightly and kissed him again. This time on the lips,

Pop, a little harder.

And then silence returned. His smile had vanished, and his eyes were cold.

“………”

“Was it not good?”

Yuri asked seriously, facing Ling Xinlu, who merely looked at him with a silent, cool expression. Then, slowly, very slowly, he lowered his indifferent gaze.

“You were right. It does upset me.”

Of course, he hadn’t expected a great reaction from a lip kiss so fleeting it was embarrassing to even call it a kiss. But he hadn’t expected such a cold gaze either.

All the women he had dated until now had been considerate, so they hadn’t blamed him for his lack of skill, it seemed. It was the first time he’d seen such an absurd expression from a mere kiss. His heart felt heavy. Indeed, this memory would last a long time.

“What I meant by ‘upsetting’ wasn’t that . …Never mind.”

Ling Xinlu, who spoke coldly with an expression that clearly showed he was truly deflated this time, stepped away from Yuri. And he flopped down onto the spot where he had originally been sitting. However, perhaps unable to suppress the surging ill temper, he glared at Yuri with displeasure.

He had thought it might be a change of pace to throw someone who was heated and aroused to the point of groaning naked, right before climax, and watch them, but this was… he clicked his tongue, muttering to himself as if it didn’t matter.

Indeed. So that’s what it was.

That would certainly deal a significant blow to his heart. Enough to be remembered for quite a long time.

Yuri quietly stroked his chest.

However, he had been aroused. For a moment, he had felt a heavy sensation below too. So much so that his claims of being heterosexual seemed laughable. Ling Xinlu, perhaps feeling Yuri’s gaze, glanced over and asked coldly, “What?”

“Oh, I was just thinking that maybe it could work with a man too.”

When Yuri said this, shaking his head, Ling Xinlu merely snorted, showing no interest. Yuri thought for a moment, then asked.

“Ling Xinlu-ssi, were you always sexually attracted to men from the beginning?”

As he spoke, it felt like a survey interview, and Ling Xinlu seemed to think similarly, frowning slightly. He began to speak in a tone that implied he’d heard enough and wanted him to get lost.

“I haven’t really thought about it. Whether it’s a man or a woman, I’ve only had a handful of experiences. I’m quite indifferent in that regard. I did it a few times because it was funny to see the other person groaning, but that’s all.”

Yuri closed his mouth. It was surprising to hear that he had almost no experience. Even from the brief contact just now, he had certainly given the impression of being experienced and skilled.

As if he had read Yuri’s thoughts, Ling Xinlu continued.

“I’m generally better than most pros even when it’s my first time, if I just know the trick. The first guy I was with, I figured out the trick by experimenting for about ten hours, and after that, he clung to me like a madman, so it was annoying to shake him off. The guy who was crying and fainting, saying he was dying of exhaustion the whole time, still clung to me like he was on drugs, despite his pathetic state.”

Yuri, who had been listening and nodding, paused for a moment.

As expected, young people have good stamina. Ten hours? He must be exaggerating, but even so, it must have been several hours. And the person who was with him, if they could endure that much in a more difficult position, must have had incredible stamina. …But can you still get an erection even if you’re exhausted and faint during it?

Yuri became lost in thought with the sudden question. When he looked at Ling Xinlu in silence, Ling Xinlu looked back at him with a questioning gaze. Then, a thought suddenly seemed to strike Ling Xinlu, and he narrowed his eyes.

It was as if he could see right through Yuri’s thoughts. Only then did Yuri realize he was thinking about someone else’s overly private matters, and he quickly shook his head to clear his mind. What did it matter anyway?

“People often misunderstand. Taeui hyung misunderstood at first too.”

“Huh?”

“…Well, it has nothing to do with Mr. Gable, so let’s drop it.”

Yuri looked at Ling Xinlu, who had suddenly blurted out something irrelevant, with a puzzled expression. Ling Xinlu looked at Yuri silently, then waved his hand as if to say “never mind.”

“That guy back then really clung to me in such a pathetic way. I tried everything to shake him off. I even got so annoyed at the very end that I told him if he took off his pants and spread his ass right there, I’d screw him, and he actually fumbled and stuck out his ass in the middle of that crowded club. What’s the difference between him and someone addicted to drugs and gone crazy? He acted so high and mighty, but when he was clinging, he had no shame or anything.”

Listening to Ling Xinlu’s sarcastic muttering, Yuri vaguely understood what part he had misunderstood. But what registered even more clearly was the tone of annoyance at the mere thought of it.

Ling Xinlu spoke of the first person he had been intimate with without a shred of warmth, simply saying he had slept with him as an experiment. Even though he thought he had already known, he felt as if he saw another facet of the man in those words, and Yuri fell silent. Even though that aspect was also a part of him and didn’t diminish him for it,

His heart felt bitter.

Like Yuri, Ling Xinlu also said nothing. Remembering the person from that time and the thoughts it evoked.

“I thought I would never make such a foolish spectacle of myself. …But I ended up looking even more pathetic than him.”

The bitter sarcasm was self-deprecating.

What he was recalling was the pain of Serenge. Yuri had often seen him crushed by the things he had lost there, suddenly and unbearably.

“If I drug him…”

Ling Xinlu suddenly murmured, as if the thought had just popped into his head. He spoke it casually, as if it were a sudden, impulsive idea, but then he fell silent for a moment. As if the thought had seeped into his mind only after he had spoken it. And Yuri instinctively recoiled, feeling his heart turn cold and stiff.

“Then will he be mine?”

“No, he won’t.”

Ling Xinlu glanced at Yuri as if he hadn’t fully heard Yuri’s unhesitating reply.

“Even if he doesn’t come to me, if Taeui hyung becomes like that, he’ll suffer. He’ll be furious, angry, and go wild like crazy. Won’t he?”

He must, Ling Xinlu chanted, his eyes beginning to gleam blackly. Yuri looked him directly in the eye and said quietly.

“Stop it. That would be losing Jeong Taeui forever.”

“Lose? He’s not mine anyway right now? It’s not me who loses, it’s him.”

“Ha,” Ling Xinlu snorted, holding up both hands. He seemed to no longer know what was contained in those empty hands. Only hatred, anger, resentment, and despair.

“If I can drag Taeui hyung to my side even like that, I’ll do it without hesitation. Do you think I can’t? I’ll tie Taeui hyung to my side and laugh at that guy raging and furious over there! JeongTaeui is mine, not yours!”

His voice grew rough. His excited eyes gleamed blackly.

Yuri thought it was a very strange sight. One eye gleaming with living, burning anger, and the other dead black, reflecting no light. Somehow, it seemed to reveal the man’s inner self completely, and his heart ached.

“Are you going to kill your remaining eye too?”

“What?”

Ling Xinlu seemed not to have understood Yuri’s involuntary murmur. Yuri looked at him, frowning and tilting his head, then slowly opened his mouth. Knowing that these words could be a dagger to him.

“Do you truly want Jeong Taeui-ssi? Jeong Taeui himself? Not just as a tool to retaliate against Rick because you hate him?”

Ling Xinlu’s expression was wiped clean from his face. The light vanished from his eyes, and emotion left his lips. Yuri, not averting his gaze from that pale face, continued bitterly.

“Your way, it’s not loving him Jeong Taeui-ssi. At least, that’s what I think.”

“I’m not loving hyung?”

“Not in the way you are now.”

“How dare you deny my feelings?”

Yuri didn’t answer. But seeing Yuri silently looking at him without averting his gaze, a slowly twisted smile appeared on Ling Xinlu’s face. “Ha…” a suppressed breath escaped.

“So you think my heart will turn elsewhere? Why? So you think you might get a crumb of something if it does?”

“I’m not speaking for myself. You are about to do something wrong.”

Ling Xinlu laughed in disbelief. He laughed slowly for a long time, then looked down at Yuri with cool eyes.

“Hurting Taeui hyung?”

“…You won’t be hurting Jeong Taeui-ssi or Riegrow. You’ll be hurting yourself.”

His laughter froze. His cool gaze froze too. As if all the blood in his body had frozen, Ling Xinlu looked down at Yuri like that. As if the anger that had crawled through his body with his blood had also frozen.

He slowly twisted his head. And looked at his empty hands. As if trying to gauge what was inside them. He would soon realize. That there was nothing but twisted emotions there. He didn’t want to realize it.

“………!”

The next moment, those empty hands gripped Yuri’s hair. Then he slammed Yuri’s head onto the table with a thud. The glass panel on the table shattered. Small fragments fell to the floor. Soon after, drops of blood trickled down onto them.

In an instant, his head and the table were stained with blood. Yuri blinked several times as blood got into his eyes. He couldn’t pinpoint where exactly the hot, stinging pain was spreading in his head.

“Just when I think it might get better…”

Ling Xinlu, who was pressing Yuri onto the table, gripping his hair tightly, spat out.

“It’s quite good, there’s a part of you I quite like, yes, it might even be very good, just when I think that…”

“…….”

“You ruin my mood in an instant. You make me feel absolutely, terribly, disgustingly bad.”

It was because Yuri showed him the self he didn’t want to see. Because he forced his pathetic self, and the even more despicable self that resulted from it, right in front of his eyes.

And because he himself knew that fact.

“Why are you like this? Are you that great? Do you like digging into people’s minds with a calm face?”

He knew this was just venting.

Yuri didn’t say a single word. No excuses, no persuasion, no apologies.

Thud . His head was slammed onto the table once more. Yuri merely let out a short groan, still saying nothing. But with that, Ling Xinlu threw Yuri aside and strode into the room. The door, which closed with a rough sound, did not open again.

Stepping out of the taxi and standing in front of the hotel entrance, Yuri lingered for a while.

Seeing him with a thick bandage wrapped around his head, the doorman, who had become familiar during his stay, approached him in surprise. Yuri smiled, assuring him he was fine, and entered the lobby, but his steps stopped again there.

He saw his bandaged reflection in the cleanly polished doorframe.

The injury wasn’t that severe. It was just a bruise with a slight tear in the skin, nothing to worry about. Although the profuse bleeding made it look like a serious injury, it would heal in a few days with some ointment.

Nevertheless, his bandaged appearance felt like a protest, as if saying, “You did this,” and he didn’t want to face Ling Xinlu right now. Of course, he couldn’t avoid seeing him until the wound had completely healed, so it would be unavoidable in the end.

Yuri paused by the elevator for a moment, then went out to the inner courtyard. It would probably be better to go in a little later. As long as there was no contact from the bodyguard he had left behind, there was nothing to worry about. If he did get a call, he was below the hotel and could go immediately.

“…….”

Perhaps because the day was cloudy, there was no one in the pool. Only the strong wind created clear ripples on the shimmering surface of the water.

Yuri sat on a bench right next to the pool. He took off the sandals he had hastily put on to go to the hospital and splashed his toes in the water. The feel of the water was comforting and welcome, embracing his skin.

He didn’t hesitate for long.

Yuri took off only his jacket and hung it on the bench, then entered the pool in his cotton shirt and cotton pants. The usual self who would say it was an inconvenience to others was nowhere to be found; there was only the self who, the moment he touched the water, felt a suffocating longing for it. He didn’t even care about his injury.