NOVEL NEXT chapter 45 - 18+
***
The pain in his abdomen felt like being pierced by a burning iron skewer. Uichan writhed, curling up on himself. He pressed hard against his belly, rubbed it desperately, but the agony didn’t fade in the slightest. Terror gripped him — what if something happened to the babies?
“What’s hurting so much that you’re groaning like that?”
Even that languid voice couldn’t calm his trembling. To cool his feverish body, Uichan clutched La Épée’s cold hand against his skin. Anything cold — he needed it on him, anywhere.
Maybe because he looked like a whimpering kitten, La Épée reached out with both hands and cupped Uichan’s cheeks, breathing a chill over him. The sigils drawn faintly across his bare hands glimmered — he was using his Ability.
But it was only temporary relief. Uichan knew from the doctor how to truly stop the pain.
He had to sleep with La Épée.
But… what if even after that, the pain didn’t stop? Would it get worse? The thought of something even more unbearable made him tremble.
His entire body felt heavy, soaked with pain, as if his mind were dissolving. Logic slipped away piece by piece. Somewhere deep inside, a desperate echo shouted that he had to do it — that sleeping with him was the only way. His hands, moving on their own, reached out toward him.
“Ah, hhh…”
“What should I do for you, then? Tell me.”
With a flushed face, Uichan clung to La Épée’s hand. Kids… please…
“La Épée… right now, ha… right now…”
“Right now what?”
“T-time, ha…”
“Time? Ah, do I have time? I’ve got plenty… why?”
“Then… with me…”
Uichan bit his lip as he met La Épée’s gray eyes. If he embraced him now… would the pain ease? Was this really the only way? He couldn’t tell anymore if it was right or wrong.
Whenever he looked at La Épée, a faint discomfort stirred inside him. Only now did he realize why — that light, elusive aura reminded him of someone else.
Images overlapped in his mind, unbidden. From the very first moment they met, Uichan had thought him oddly familiar — strangely similar to someone he knew. Yet La Épée’s eyes lacked the constellation that defined him.
“Why stop halfway through a sentence…? You /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ should finish it.”
Even now, as Uichan looked at La Épée, his thoughts kept drifting to that other person. Overwhelmed by the noise in his head, he let out a low sigh when a warm hand slid up the back of his neck. Sweat rolled down in cold beads, until he couldn’t think at all.
Another wave of pain struck, making his shoulders shudder violently. La Épée’s hand brushed along his ear in a slow, soothing motion.
“I… I want…”
First, the babies… save the little ones first. Clutching him in desperation, Uichan spoke through trembling lips.
“That thing… our thing…”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to say… Say it properly, Uichan.”
“I just…”
La Épée leaned closer to listen. Holding tightly onto him, Uichan squeezed his eyes shut.
“I just, hhh… hold me… please.”
For a moment, silence followed. Then the hands gripping Uichan tightened. Veins rose on La Épée’s neck as he asked in a low voice,
“…You mean sex?”
Uichan only nodded, over and over. He couldn’t bear to look at him. Yes, please, just hold me, he pleaded desperately, clutching him tighter. A large hand brushed down the back of his head, then pressed firmly against his back.
After patting his back a few times, La Épée lifted him up in one swift motion. Pulling Uichan’s outer coat over his head to cover him completely, he wrapped him up tight and left the shelter.
“Just hang on a little. We’ll be there soon.”
Uichan’s upper body was pressed against La Épée’s shoulder, but he didn’t have the strength to care. Beneath the coat, he clenched his teeth and focused all his strength on enduring the pain. Gripping La Épée’s clothes as tightly as he could, he listened to the rush of wind brushing past his ear.
For a brief moment, he must have blacked out, because when he blinked his eyes open, his vision was hazy. But the scenery had completely changed. They were no longer outside — they were indoors.
It had been bright daylight outside, but the curtains were drawn, dimming the room. Striding forward, La Épée pushed open a door and laid Uichan down on the bed. As soon as he stepped back, Uichan reached out.
“Haa… hurry…!”
“I got it, okay? But you have to take your clothes off.”
“Hurry… please, I… ha…”
Clutching at him with trembling hands, Uichan was drenched in sweat. A gentle hand wiped the bead of sweat trembling at his chin. The cool back of La Épée’s hand pressed firmly against his feverish eyes and forehead.
Uichan wanted him to do something, anything. The pain surged in waves, crashing over him. Each time it hit, his scalp prickled and goosebumps rose all over his skin.
His eyes stung — he must have been crying. His sleeve was soaked through, proof that he had wept in La Épée’s arms as they came here.
“…If I wash you now… that wouldn’t be good, would it?”
“Hh, no… f-faster…”
“Okay, okay. I was joking.”
He soothed Uichan in a low voice and slid his hand under the clothes. When the cold touch invaded, Uichan flinched. His own body felt like it was burning in a furnace, while the other’s was icy like submerged glass—so cold that he couldn’t help but cling to it. For a brief instant, it felt as if the pain had evaporated, which only made his heart race faster.
“…But, Uichan. What should I do? Once I start, I can’t really stop halfway. If you want me to stop, say it now.”
He pulled Uichan’s waist close. The cold hand kept moving upward, brushing against his chest and under his arm. Over his trembling lips that exhaled hot breath came La Épée’s voice. Before they knew it, their mouths were frozen only an inch apart. With a fever-flushed face, Uichan looked up at him.
“I’m saying, it won’t end with just once or twice. Can you handle that?”
“H-how long…”
La Épée’s eyes drifted up lazily, staring at the ceiling as if calculating. A low hum rumbled from his throat. When he glanced at the clock, the small hand pointed to three. The sun hadn’t even begun to set; it was too early in the day, too soon for skipping meals to have sex.
But looking at Uichan now… saying let’s eat first would have been ridiculous. With a faint smile tugging at his lips, La Épée gripped his waist with both hands.
“Well. Hmm… until morning, I suppose?”
Uichan’s gaze wavered hard. His bewildered eyes darted to the wall clock, then back to La Épée. But when La Épée pulled on his waist, Uichan was dragged helplessly against him.
His hips brushed against La Épée’s firm thigh, friction sliding between them. The harsh, solid press of his erection against Uichan’s body only poured fuel onto the fire in his chest.
Uichan kept his lips sealed tight and crushed the hem of La Épée’s clothes in his fists. There was no backing out now. No—there had never been another choice to begin with. He yanked hard on the fabric clutched in his hands.
“We came this far… what’s left… to think about. So just…”
Just do something to me already, Uichan said in a roundabout way. Tears slid down the corners of his reddened eyes. A pale hand, as if left out in midwinter frost for days, gently wiped them away.
But in the next instant, his nape was seized and his lips were devoured with a force that nearly bruised. One arm coiled around his waist while the other twisted to yank up his clothes. Tuduk—the sound of buttons popping off his shirt echoed sharply.
A single button rolled across the floor and stopped with a dull clink, and by then, La Épée had lost his composure as well. Between rough, tangled breaths, he whispered one last thing.
“I’ll try to… go slow.”
That was probably how it began.
***
Uichan’s spread legs trembled. Everything felt so strange; every place that was touched made his skin flinch in sharp, raw sensitivity. Having no idea about foreplay, he couldn’t understand why La Épée kept touching him like this.
“Hh… ah!”
A cold, hard hand wrapped around him and began to move. Each time his sensitive flesh brushed against the calloused palm, Uichan arched his head back helplessly. It felt as if waves were crashing inside his skull, thought scattering into white noise.
La Épée had stripped him completely bare and left no pause between the kisses, touching and licking every corner of his body. When they had fallen into the pit at the party that night, it hadn’t been like this. No—that memory came only in fragments, so even that wasn’t certain.
Still… he didn’t remember being teased and driven this crazy, tormented to the edge like this. Wasn’t it enough just to push in and finish? But one glance at the bulge straining under La Épée’s clothes told him that wasn’t about to happen yet.
A slick sound broke through the air, and Uichan jerked hard. When he lifted his wet eyes to look at La Épée, he met a gaze burning like molten metal.
“Why are you thinking about something else with me right in front of you?”
“N-no… I wasn’t. Just, please, not there… hh.”
“It’s still soft… should I stop?”
As Uichan tried to turn to the side, one of his legs was lifted. Between his widely spread thighs, pale flesh was rubbing and sliding against him with sharp, steady friction. Watching it through trembling eyes, Uichan let out a sound he couldn’t hold back when the hand that had traced up from the base brushed hard over the tip.
His waist trembled uncontrollably; his body wouldn’t obey him. Soft, he’d said. But Uichan was already fully hard. The stimulation was too much—his strength melted away until his body felt limp and unsteady. How could he say that, when he was doing this…
“S-stop… ah…!”
Half-collapsed, head bowed, Uichan shuddered as La Épée bit into the back of his neck hard enough to leave teeth marks, then licked the spot. Each time that thick tongue brushed over the bite, his back stiffened like a frightened prey animal caught by the throat.