Page 111 of Hamartia

He’s still fast asleep. Lying on his front with his cheek pressed into the pillow. His hair is a blonde tangled mess about his head, long enough that he’s been tying it back out of his face when he’s writing in his leather notebook or watching TV.

I perch on the bed next to him and gently brush a section of hair back from his cheek. He sleeps deeply, Raphael. As I do. A strand of compatibility I didn’t know I cared about. But I like that he sinks into dreams as heavily and completely as I do. My patterns of sleep are strange and often problematic, but when I do sleep it is heavy and deep. I lean in and kiss the side of his neck, the scent of him strong here. Sleep and soap. As I nuzzle my nose against the warm skin, he flutters awake, slow and yawning.

“Merry Christmas, Raphael.” I smile as I pull back up.

Eyes still closed, he smiles. “Keur-iseu-maseu jal bona-eseyo,” he says groggily, carefully, before his mouth turns up into a shy smile.

I can’t hide the small look of surprise on my face.

“Sorry. Did I butcher that? I watched a YouTube video.”

I laugh because he looks extremely cute right now. “You did not butcher it.”

“I didn’t?” His eyes light up, happy.

I shake my head, reaching out to pet his.

“You have no idea how many times I listened to google translate saying that over and over. And there were all these different versions of it, formal and informal, slightly less formal. Us English speaking folk really just said ‘fuck it’ we’re gonna have exactly one way of saying shit, didn’t we?” He’s laughing now and it makes me laugh too. He slides a hand up under my T-shirt where he flicks a calloused finger over my nipple. “I’m not sure I’m ever gonna be able to speak Korean, baby. I’m sorry.”

I shake my head to disagree. “I am sure if you practiced a lot you could. English was very hard for me at first.” My cheeks heat as I say, “And you have a very talented mouth.”

His eyes glint with mischief as he wraps an arm all the way around me and pulls me fully on top of him. “Yeah? Why don’t you tell me more about this talented mouth of mine. Anything in particular you like that it does?”

“There is one song you sing, where your voice sounds very deep, that I like a lot.” I sigh with my eyes closed.

He pinches my hip playfully.

“What?” I ask innocently. “You thought I was talking about something else?”

He grins and buries his entire head under my t-shirt, licking and nibbling the warm skin of my stomach. It makes me howl with laughter because I am very ticklish here. My feet too. But he has not found out about this yet. I can feel the familiar stir of want between my legs. I want him as much as I always do. His mouth, his cock, his come, all of it all over me, inside me. When he seals his mouth over my nipple and sucks, I almost abandon all of the plans I made for today.

“Raphael…we…I have…made plans.”

He pulls his head out from under my t-shirt and gives me a perplexed look. “Plans?”

I nod. “I have arranged something—I hope you don’t mind.”

“You have to go see your family or something?” He looks torn. “I can hang out here, it’s fine, I don’t mind.”

“No, not that.” He is so desperately sweet. “I mean plans for us. You and I.”

“Oh.” He looks mildly suspicious now.

I lean in to peck him soft on the nose then slip out of his loosened hold to stand.

“I think you will like it.” I give him my sweetest smile. “Now come, eat, and then we will dress and pack.”

“Pack?” He blinks. “I haven’t evenunpacked.”

“Then it will not take you long. You can comfort Shiro while I pack. He hates travelling.”

This makes him sit up, blanket falling to expose his lean, golden body, dabbled with black ink. “We’retravelling?”

I give him a wide smile. “Come on or your American-style breakfast will be cold.”

Shirodoeshate travelling. But Eun-soo who usually comes to look after him when I am travelling is in Chongju with her family, and so there’s no other option but to take him with us. The drive is only a little over an hour, so he will be okay.

I’d told Raphael as little as possible about where we were going. Only that it was in the forest and a popular scenic route. He said he hoped I wasn’t doing this for him because he would have been happy to spend the day in bed with me, that he couldn’t think of a better way to spend Christmas in fact. I told him that we could do that when we got there if he liked.