188.

If possible, he intended to spend the night with her in one breath. Whispering barely audible sweet nothings in her ear. So that she could reveal her true feelings in her drowsy state. Until she herself admitted that she could no longer turn away from him. The sight of her standing with her spine stiff as if her corneas were hardened with wax, or feeling ecstasy from something other than him, now made his teeth chatter.

Her husband would soon open his eyes. He seemed to be a light sleeper. But Inette, you must bear the responsibility for this blissful night.

As she tilted her head in the air with her arms around his neck, Inette’s fingertips suddenly felt a chill as she fiddled with the back of his head, as if it were an old habit. Even now, her touch burned across his entire skin. So much so. His heart felt like it would melt and ooze, his face hot to the point of burning. Inette.

He almost couldn’t hold back from whispering. Since you gave birth to this aimless blockhead, isn’t this confused obsession rightfully your share? Oh, hurry…

You must pay the price for this unfortunate life.

“…It was hard.”

While Johannes was momentarily distracted, he faintly heard his sinner whisper as if talking to herself. Johannes stared at Inette with eyes like someone who had just woken up. The reality that had flown away like sparks was returning seamlessly to its place. The night air and the white curtains of the four-poster bed felt close. Who exactly was intoxicated with sleep right now?

Sister intoxicated with sleep. Despite the sudden realization, his breathing grew hot. What shall we do tonight, Inette? Instead of asking such a seductive question, he lightly curled up the edge of his hand. Being careful not to let his long nails leave a mark on Inette’s forehead, he gently brushed the edge of her forehead outwards.

“You said it was hard.”

“Today…”

Inette’s lips closed thinly. Johannes waited silently for a moment for her to continue. But she couldn’t find the words. She just let her still sleepy gaze drift to the edge of the pillow. In the end, only the deep breathing of the three people could be heard softly on the bed, shielded from the outside by white veils. Today. Johannes, recalling the end of Inette’s words, laughed like a sigh.

“I know. I heard everything.”

“You heard…?”

“Yes.”

“…Ah.”

Inette’s gaze sank behind her drooping eyelids. Johannes saw her cheeks, curled under his chin, turn red even in her sleep. The color was too painful to be just a blush from vague shame. As if she was terrified of having shown something unseemly. Perhaps she was recalling what kind of sounds she had made.

Those boiling sounds.

“No. Your voice was solemn.”

Johannes quietly soothed her. As Inette tried to slip away into the realm of sleep without a word to him, he gently took her chin and turned it to face him, and her eyes slowly opened again.

“But your body cried like a torrent…”

“……”

“…That’s the kind of woman you are.”

He quietly reproached her drooping eyelids that hadn’t fully sensed it and weren’t looking up at him.

“Rather than endure that pain, you should have chosen me.”

Did she not hear that either? Inette just curled up more in his arms with a rather sorrowful look. As if his whole body, which now lay lengthwise between her and her husband, could serve as her barrier. Her shoulders, now curled up almost burrowing into Johannes’ chest, were just like when they slept together as children, even evoking nostalgia.

“…Would you be any different?”

“……”

“I don’t know…”

Inette mumbled something barely audible, shook her head, and finally closed her eyes again.

The breathing of the young husband lying on the outside of the bed was still even. Johannes, who had briefly paid attention to the presence behind him, lowered his lips to the edge of Inette’s forehead, truly slowly but without hesitation. He seemed like someone who never needed to ask for understanding or permission in the first place. He was that brazen.

Nevertheless, his low exhalation couldn’t hide its trembling. His gestures, crumbling little by little onto the forehead of the sleeping girl, were like someone trying to spread his shaky breath on her skin. Pressing his lips against his sister’s motionless temple, even her eyes, he desperately inhaled the faint scent of ointment wafting over her skin. Kissing so desperately, as if swallowing, he went down to her cheek.

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Finally, he reached the corner of her lips. And just then.

The fingertips that had been around Johannes’ neck slid down and caressed his mouth. His heart froze helplessly. He’s being rejected. An eerie premonition flashed through his mind like a needle. It was like an unshakeable habit. His chest pounded sharply.

However, strangely enough, the fingertips touching Johannes’ mouth were gentle.

“I don’t want to know…”

“……”

“It was too hard…. Too much…”

Inette pushed her cheek towards him. So comfort me first. Her resentful voice could be heard without listening. It was like throwing a tantrum as in childhood. The tension that had gripped Johannes dissipated instantly with her attitude. He felt his chest grow tight.

He raised his upper body while keeping Inette’s waist between his knees. Exhaling his strangely dark, sunken breath rapidly, he glanced towards the end of the bed. After briefly observing his husband’s state, he settled right on top of Inette’s body. Sweet. So sweet it was maddening. He grabbed both sides of her chin with his hands and kissed her frantically.

Johannes whispered in between biting all over Inette’s face.

“You don’t know. You’re really strange today. How… not resisting even once.”

“Mm.”

“Don’t tell me you… don’t know what we’re doing?”

“…ra.”

“You don’t know?”

“……”

“…Really?”

Lies.

Johannes swallowed his breath for a moment. Unable to bear the sweet tremor, he impulsively bit Inette’s cheek. Yes, it’s a lie. She knows. Rather, he himself is the fool. He who spent so many nights by her side like an idiot was the perfect fool. He didn’t know what superhuman patience he had exercised to be satisfied with her light skin. Ah, why couldn’t he have taken the step? Something so easy to obtain.

He could no longer see anything else. When there seemed to be no more dry skin left on her face. Johannes’ head tilted sideways. Just as he was bent, he overlapped his lips with hers as if lifting her upper lip. He kissed her like water. Without a single hesitation.

“Uh, mm…”

A faint moan flowed from Inette’s mouth as it opened to his pushing lips. At that sound, Johannes’ kisses became even more urgent. He breathed out a wicked, wicked smile, as if this child truly had no awareness of who she was doing what with.

“Jo… han. …han.”

Fortunately in the midst of misfortune, his name was called.

Inette, rubbing unfamiliar warmth against her lips, seemed to be getting more intoxicated with sleep on her own. No, she appeared to be intoxicated with sensation. She was like someone who had been waiting only for the day to savor him. Even her fingertips that had been frantically caressing his cheeks now aimlessly groped at the air. She even began to stretch her neck long to find below his lips. Ah.

An indescribable euphoria boiled from deep within Johannes’ lungs. Now it was impossible to distinguish who was drinking whom. Johannes grasped Inette’s hand that was shaking like a reed.

“…Inette.”

He whispered as if in pain and finally stuck out his tongue to lightly lick the plump curve. With a start. Inette’s shoulders suddenly trembled finely. But he couldn’t stop. Bear with it. There was no time to demand out loud. Johannes just hurriedly, gently sucked the inside of her slightly parted lips. At that moment, Inette’s movements, which had been absorbed in kissing him, stopped all at once, like a lie.

“Ah.”

Inette, who had stiffened her whole body, only let out such a short, broken moan after a long while. She was like someone having difficulty breathing after being stabbed in the abdomen. When Johannes slid over her moistened lips, even her breathing seemed to have stopped.

Johannes heard the pounding heartbeat under Inette’s chest, which was no longer exhaling. Inette’s eyelashes fluttered, and her cloudy gaze opened halfway.

“It’s nothing.”

Johannes whispered quickly with rough breaths. Even as Johannes’ own heart felt like it would burst out, he didn’t think for a moment that this was madness. He grabbed Inette’s neck under his chest as if stroking it upwards, then gently held her chin in place. After staring for a moment at the gap between Inette’s lips that obediently turned following his hand, he reached the point where he could no longer hold back. And so again.

Open your mouth.

He seemed to have muttered that. Inette’s ears twitched. He deeply licked inside her lips, which opened hesitantly, trembling, unable to hide her convulsions.

“Jo, ha… sleep.”

“No.”

“Ah, wait. That…”

“No. Can’t stop.”

“Stop…”

“Can’t… hear…”

There was no real resistance. Her arms were wrapped around Johannes’ neck, stroking his hair. Even the word “stop” was too heavy for those gestures. She seemed to be trying to soothe Johannes. In the end, Johannes couldn’t believe that sensation clinging to him as if strangling. He inadvertently moaned. Inette shuddered slightly in his mouth as if resonating with it.

“Jo…”

“…Ah.”

“Jo… han.”

Thump thump. Thump thump. In the increasingly violent pulse, her breath, blooming like foam, was swirling and fading inside his mouth. On a night without even moonlight. He heard the sound of fine goosebumps spreading from around her ears.

A voice, so pitiful it was almost a tragedy, called out to him frantically.

“Johan…”

Ah, and yet you want me just as much.

His spine tingled so much he felt like he would die. A breath passing through his windpipe, a self-destructive heat was spreading throughout his entire body from head to toe. What expression will you make when your proud husband discovers this bottomless sight? He couldn’t even imagine.

“Why are we…?”

Inette whispered breathlessly.

“Is it strange?”

“It’s… strange…”

“What does it matter. All this… Inside your mouth… that you created. Ah, you probably don’t know. Yes. Actually, it’s all your…”

Johannes whispered almost without thinking, without even withdrawing his lips. His voice was trembling uncontrollably. At his answer, Inette let out a breathless sound and instead burrowed deeper between Johannes’ lips. While her gestures were so desperate, she spread her hands to press against his chest as if trying to block his closeness. Johannes had to swallow dry saliva each time, stopping mid-kiss.

“Are you deliberately doing this to drain my blood?”

He laughed.

It was fine even if it was purely his own delusion. Wasn’t he in a state where he had given up on considering her circumstances ever again? For that reason, he could be ecstatic like a blind man. My sister who rarely lets go once she grasps a person’s heart, he almost spat out curses against her cheek in a trembling voice. His breath seemed to have a sweet scent. And just then.

It was then that he heard the young man lying behind him showing signs of regaining consciousness.