Hongdu - The King's Men - Chapter 37

Nothing had changed, nothing at all.

Climbing over Scholar Jung’s wall in the dead of night was still a crime, that fact remained unchanged.

But strangely, Kwon Jwa Woo felt reassured by Hong Woo Geon’s whisper of “We’re accomplices.” She also felt an odd thrill.

The fact that she was with him. Realizing that he and she coexisted within the boundary of “us” made her lips twitch involuntarily.

Then she quickly became aware of reality.

The situation she was in.

And the proper conduct she should maintain.

Jwa Woo lowered her lips, feigning indifference. Then she put on an expression as if the current situation was extremely uncomfortable.

She sharpened her gaze and armored her heart with icy coolness. She tried to show that firmly prepared face to Hong Woo Geon.

But…

Her hasty action backfired. Focusing only on her own conduct without grasping Hong Woo Geon’s situation was the cause of the trouble.

She had intended to tell him to stop such childish antics. Jwa Woo had only meant to reprimand Hong Woo Geon with sharp admonishment.

But she could not open her mouth.

The moment she turned her face toward Hong Woo Geon, something infinitely soft and plump touched the corner of her lips.

What could have touched her to feel so soft?

The curiosity was resolved before long.

That which touched the corner of Jwa Woo’s lips.

That warm and moist sensation was none other than Hong Woo Geon’s lips.

His lips, which had been whispering in Jwa Woo’s ear, collided with hers due to a sudden movement.

The tingling, soft, and tender sensation unexpectedly gave Jwa Woo a great shock.

For an instant, it seemed as if the world had stopped.

The breeze brushing their faces, the flow of air surrounding the two, all froze for a moment.

An unintended kiss.

Trapped as if in a vacuum, Jwa Woo could not breathe.

Though it would end if she just turned her head slightly.

Her entire body was stiff and immobile.

What should she do?

How should she handle this situation?

Just as worry and anxiety were piling up layer upon layer,

Hong Woo Geon opened his mouth while still pressed against Jwa Woo’s lips.

“It was you.”

“…”

“You started it.”

[This is the timeline separator]

It was a kind of declaration of war.

The prelude to a fierce battle.

Hong Woo Geon bit Jwa Woo’s lips and would not let go.

As if taking a big bite of an apple, he trapped her lips in his mouth.

A faint fragrance and heated sigh flowed into his mouth.

The shy lady kept trying to escape the more he approached.

No chance. Where do you think you’re going now? I absolutely cannot let you go.

He finally realized the nature of the emotion that had been tormenting him lately.

It was this woman.

He wanted to embrace this woman.

A man’s desire to capture and possess.

He had been at a loss, unable to recognize it.

Hong Woo Geon decided not to deny his belatedly realized feelings, his male instincts.

No, he vowed to be more faithful to them than ever before.

He raised one hand and firmly embraced the nape of Jwa Woo’s neck as she kept trying to escape.

Bound by his strong force, her lips entered deeper into Hong Woo Geon’s mouth.

One might think she would give up helplessly and crumble at this point.

But Jwa Woo did not surrender easily and held firm.

She kept her lips tightly closed, not allowing his invasion.

The more she resisted, the more Hong Woo Geon’s will blazed fiercely.

He probed and dug into the crevice of her teeth with the sharpened tip of his tongue.

Thus, his flame that forcefully entered between her opened lips caressed and soothed her pink gums.

His gentle attack continued persistently and tenaciously.

How much time had passed?

She slowly began to crumble. Jwa Woo’s clenched teeth parted.

Jwa Woo let out all her pent-up breath at once. In her mouth, which had expelled the held breath, a tongue as red as a tooth flower shyly took its place.

Hong Woo Geon did not miss the momentary gap.

He unhesitatingly entwined Jwa Woo’s red flame with the tip of his tongue.

A fierce battle of grabbing, pulling, pushing, and being pushed ensued between the two.

An endless game of hide-and-seek – chasing when pursued, fleeing when caught.

Breaths intermingled in his and her mouths.

A distant thrill enveloped both their bodies.

Under the scattered moonlight, there existed only one man and one woman.

The world retreated far away. All that existed became faintly dim.

A world of oblivion unfolded at Jwa Woo and Hong Woo Geon’s feet.

Thus, the two indulged in each other, forgetting everything else.

[This is the timeline separator]

The sound of night cries was heard from afar.

Jwa Woo opened her blurry eyes and gazed at the night sky.

The half-moon that had been off to one side was now floating in the center of the sky.

She looked at the man beneath her, breathing heavily.

The tingling sensation from the kiss with Hong Woo Geon still lingered. Due to the aftereffects, even the slightest breeze made her whole body shiver.

It had been just a simple act of lips touching lips.

But why was her heart pounding so violently? Why was her mind going blank? Why was she overcome with the desire to not let him go? She did not know.

Hong Woo Geon’s breath was as rough as hers.

Even in the moonlight, his eyes shone brightly as he looked at her. Hong Woo Geon’s eyes were full of unquenched thirst.

He was longing.

For her, only for his woman…

If only he could, he wanted to make Jwa Woo completely his person on this night.

His desire was clearly conveyed to her.

Her heart wavered. Her instincts urged her.

To do it. To follow wherever Hong Woo Geon led.

But Jwa Woo soon shook her head.

No, no.

She had things to do. Things she had to accomplish.

She pushed aside her wavering heart and coldly rose from her place.

Then she hurriedly straightened her disheveled appearance after the long kiss. She fixed her crooked hat and tightly tied her loosened collar strings. After composing herself, Jwa Woo turned to look at Hong Woo Geon.

“What are you doing?”

Hong Woo Geon asked in a half-muffled voice.

He was still lying down.

With his upper body half-raised, his eyes looking at her were filled with puzzlement.

Jwa Woo extended her hand to such a Hong Woo Geon.

“Get up.”

“What?”

“We came for reconnaissance, didn’t we?”

Puzzlement cleared from Hong Woo Geon’s face, replaced now by disbelief.

“Reconnaissance? Now, in this situation, that’s what comes to your mind?”

“What situation are we in?”

“You and I…”

He was about to say that they had just finished a long, long kiss.

But Hong Woo Geon’s words were cut off by Jwa Woo.

“Stop it.”

Jwa Woo raised her hand to stop his words and opened her mouth.

“What just happened is just…”

“Just what?”

“Think of it as a kind of lip print shared between accomplices before committing a crime.”

A lip print?

She knew well it was nonsense.

But she had to say such nonsense.

Jwa Woo knew better than anyone in the world that this was her situation.

It was her first kiss with a man in her life. No, perhaps this might be the last kiss of her life.

Had she never imagined herself wearing a beautiful silk skirt and pretty jacket, adorned with dazzling ornaments, nestled in the arms of a gentle lover?

But after her father’s death, she knew such a life was not meant for her.

Dressed as a man, she had struggled to survive among rough men. She had lived as Hwa Seop Ja of Myeongnyebang for 3 years, and now she had become a secret royal inspector’s assistant. Now she could not destroy the tower she had built so painstakingly.

So she must forget.

She must cut this night’s events cleanly and neatly from her mind.

“A lip print?”

Hong Woo Geon turned Jwa Woo’s words over and over in his mouth.

A lip print?

To think of this tingling kiss as merely a ‘lip stamp’ of sorts, was she really in her right mind to say such a thing?

It couldn’t be.

It must not be her true feelings.

No, if by chance these were her true feelings, it was even more incomprehensible.

As if reading his inner thoughts, Jwa Woo drove in the final nail.

“Think of it as a secret pact marker for our covert reconnaissance.”

“Next you’ll say, ‘We’ll forget this cleanly once this night is over.'”

“How do you know my mind so well? Once this night is over, we’ll both forget this completely.”

Though she spoke to Hong Woo Geon, it was also a promise to herself.

Forget it, must forget it, the current pounding heart and excitement.

Even the longing to become a true woman, forget it, let’s forget it.

“Well, what are you doing? We’ve come all the way over the wall, aren’t we going to do the reconnaissance?”

Jwa Woo spoke with forced cheerfulness and walked ahead.

Hong Woo Geon just stared blankly at her retreating figure with blinking eyes.

Then belatedly coming to his senses, he hurriedly got up.

“My first time was a lip print? Does that make any sense?”

Hong Woo Geon followed closely behind Jwa Woo with an utterly aggrieved look.

“It was your first time?”

“Of course it was my first. Who does this kind of thing two or three times?”

“…”

“What? Wasn’t it yours?”

“…”

“Fine, that’s all fine. But let’s do it again. Whether it’s a hand print or lip print, let’s do it properly again.”

“Please say something that makes sense.”

“You think this situation makes sense?”

“What doesn’t make sense? And if we came for reconnaissance, focus only on the reconnaissance. Don’t get distracted by other things.”

“It’s because of you. And I’ve already made all the preparations, so don’t worry.”

“Preparations? What preparations?”

“You’ll find out soon.”

“What is it? What preparations did you make exactly?”

“Whoa, knowing too much can hurt you.”

“If I know more, I can think of ways to deal with it. How would I get hurt?”

“My, you’re persistent.”

“Hong Subordinate Inspector himself is no less stubborn.”

The two’s bickering in hushed voices did not stop.

The intense afterglow of the kiss gradually dispersed into the night sky.

The moonlight followed whitely above the two people walking one after the other.