I Liked It First

Chapter 1

Prologue.

“Doyeon, are you sure you don’t like me anymore?”

Doyeon didn’t answer Hyunoh’s frigid question. He couldn’t tell what Hyunoh’s dim eyes meant either.

He tilted his head back, before their lips could touch, while he came up with an answer.

“Yeah. I don’t like you anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

It had been six years.

Six years of Doyeon trying to destroy his love for Hyunoh. Doyeon was sure there had been some progress, as much as he tried.

Hyunoh’s smile tilted at Doyeon’s firm answer, and his hand on Doyeon’s back fell down along the curve of his waist. Then he dragged Doyeon closer by his butt and pressed their lower halves together.

Ah!

Surprised, Doyeon flinched as he felt the other’s clearly pronounced existence between their entwined legs—a firm, heated feeling. Doyeon’s breaths turned nervously fast as he faced Hyunoh’s lust clearly.

“But you’re excited.”

“That’s because you’re... pressing against me.”

“But how? You just said you didn’t like me.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say before that I could only do this kind of stuff with someone I like? That means you shouldn’t be reacting like this.”

Doyeon wanted to ask what kind of stupid argument that was supposed to be, but his words evaporated as Hyunoh grinded against him, his hands on his rear.

“Don’t.”

He could feel his body warming like a struck match. His cheeks and ears burned as his breaths grew shorter. Doyeon hoped the darkness would bury his face and neck so that Hyunoh wouldn’t notice.

“Hyunoh Gong, you know this is instinct.”

“Then do you always react like this around other guys, Doyeon? Because you’re gay?”

Hyunoh shoved his hand under Doyeon’s shirt and slowly rubbed his palm against his skin.

“What? No. That’s not—”

“Because what I heard is that you get aroused by being with me because you like men, regardless of who your partner is.”

Doyeon didn’t answer.

“I don’t think I’ll react like this around other guys,” Hyunoh whispered as he brought them both closer. There wasn’t a hint of laughter in his voice anymore.

Hyunoh’s hands had climbed up Doyeon’s back and were circling around his shoulder blades. That soft, meaningful press sent sparks down Doyeon’s spine.

He tried to get out of Hyunoh’s arms, but Hyunoh tightened his grip around Doyeon the more he tried.

Despite his easygoing smile, Hyunoh had Doyeon under his grasp.

“You... You’re the same, though. You’re...”

“I like you, Doyeon.”

A faint light in Doyeon’s eyes slowly faded. Hyunoh. You always make your confessions so easily.

“I do like you. As a friend.”

Like that confession you made a long time ago.

Of course, Doyeon was smart enough to know Hyunoh’s “like” and his “like” were different. At that point, he thought Hyunoh Gong was cruel to say those words so carelessly when they stabbed at his heart and wrung it by the neck.

The moment they stopped talking, Doyeon’s body was pressed backwards. By the time he noticed, Doyeon was on the bed, with Hyunoh on top of him.

Hyunoh seemed bigger, as his shadow cast over him.

Hyunoh pressed his knee between Doyeon’s legs and brushed his center.

“So Doyeon gets excited just by being close to me...”

Hyunoh’s hand circled around Doyeon’s stomach and slowly climbed up. When he rubbed Doyeon’s side, the hair on Doyeon’s neck stood up. His fingers on Doyeon’s bare skin slid to the nub on his chest, which had turned red.

“Ah—” Surprised, Doyeon curled up.

Hyunoh pushed Doyeon’s shirt up immediately and pressed his face over Doyeon’s chest. His hot, wet tongue caressed Doyeon’s sensitive skin.

“H-Hyunoh Gong! What…?!”

Doyeon turned pale. He flailed against him, grabbing Hyunoh’s hair with trembling hands. In return, he received a strong nip. Ecstasy and pain throbbed throughout his body.

Hands fell on Doyeon’s waist and crawled into his pants.

“Look at you, reacting so well. And you don’t like me?”

“Haah, s-stop, ahh...”

Doyeon begged under Hyunoh’s weight, grabbed Hyunoh’s hair as his face roamed his chest, and stopped Hyunoh’s hands on the waistband of his briefs. But neither Hyunoh’s face nor hands moved from their places.

“I don’t understand. You don’t like me, but you’re this excited... I thought it was because you like men, but you say I’m wrong...”

“Hnng...”

“I get confused whenever you...” He didn’t finish his sentence.

Hyunoh slowly raised himself and shifted his weight to his knees to look down at Doyeon.

Doyeon was a mess beneath him. His cheeks and ears were red, and his shirt had been rolled up to his neck, revealing his pale body. The places Hyunoh’s lips had touched remained red and swollen.

That sight turned Hyunoh’s clear brown eyes a darker color.

Doyeon looked up at Hyunoh and gulped.

He had never seen Hyunoh like this, not even during their high school years, which rendered their friendship useless.

Arc One. A New Academic Year.

[Six years ago.]

Doyeon stood in front of YunHyun High School’s freshman podium for Class One with a hesitant expression.

Kangbin Baek and Sunwoo Hong, who were sitting near the aisle, raised their fists the moment their eyes met. They hollered out to him.

“You’re looking handsome today, Doyeon!”

“You can do this!”

Doyeon waved his hands to calm his friends down.

He started slow. “Hi, I’m Doyeon Yoo. I’m running for class president because...”

Kangbin Baek and Sunwoo Hong had recommended him for the position, so the competition had been half-forced on him. Still, considering his experience being class president during middle school for three straight years, he wasn’t nervous.

There’s no need for this position in high school, though.

Doyeon hadn’t intended to run for any class position.

Yes, it could fill a line on his student record, but it was better to focus on his GPA when he already had good grades. He didn’t want to bother his mom with school duties, either.

Their family finances had gotten worse after his father’s death. His mother, now a working mom, could barely raise her two children. He didn’t need the luxury of being class president on top of that.

Parents of class presidents weren’t called to the school as often as they had been in the past, but personal mom gatherings and notices for class parents had to be managed, and he didn’t want that for her.

“So... I’ll try my best if you elect me,” he ended with a flimsy smile. It was a very short, formal speech, with the basic “I’ll lead” and “I’ll be responsible” arguments.

He was trudging back to his seat when Kangbin Baek elbowed him.

“Dude, what’s with the ‘I’ll try my best’? I wouldn’t choose you.”

“I got nervous.”

“Nervous? You? You get nervous?”

“I’m human.”

“Right, you are going up against Hyunoh Gong. Yeah, that’s understandable,” Kangbin Baek whispered.

Hyunoh Gong. Doyeon rolled that name in his mouth and glanced to the side. There was a tall student, taller than the others, leaning against his hands by the window.

He was his competitor for the position and the kid most likely to be class president that year.

Hyunoh Gong always looked laid-back and calm despite being a high school student. He seemed to be on a different level than his friends, who played around throwing mushed balls of eraser dust at each other. His lighthearted smile and strange atmosphere naturally drew people’s eyes.

That’s class president material right there. Not me.

Doyeon had first seen Hyunoh during the entrance day, when Hyunoh had stood as the representative for all the new students. The projector had shown a close-up of his face, and the entire hall broke out in whispers.

The reason was simple.

“Woah...”

As the girls’ mumblings in awe suggested, his looks were exceptional.

It wasn’t as though he had sported a cool hairstyle, and he wore the same uniform as everyone else. But something was different. His confident voice and straight posture, his self-assured movements and easygoing smile, and the way he spoke in his soft voice. Everything denoted a well-educated and rich kid.

Doyeon’d seen the same guy in his classroom after the speech.

The guy was talking with his middle school friends, sticking out above them like a sore thumb.

Kangbin Baek, who’d walked in with Doyeon, called for him.

“Hyunoh! I saw your speech! Did you really get in here as the first in your school?!”

They seemed to know each other. Hyunoh turned his head at Kangbin’s voice, but his eyes landed on Doyeon instead of Kangbin.

Under his gaze, Doyeon had to remind himself this was the same guy who’d been on the screen earlier.

Hyunoh soon shifted his gaze away to stare at Kangbin, but Doyeon remembered Hyunoh’s eyes for a very long time. Doyeon thought of them as he walked home, as he lay in bed before he slept, and after he closed his eyes…

“Now, write two names on the slip of paper. One person for class president, and one person for vice president. And fold it twice!”

Doyeon stopped thinking back to that day and raised his pencil. On the small paper, he wrote “Hyunoh Gong” first and “Siwon Kim” last.

That day, Hyunoh became the class president of Class One.

* * *

“I’ll be back.”

Doyeon pushed the old gate open.

Creeeaak.

That was one amazing sound for a door. He made a note to himself to get some grease. Holding on to the door that could fly away with the wind, Doyeon shouted toward the kitchen.

“Aeyoung, finish your bread before you leave!”

“Right!” Aeyoung waved her hand from the table. She was covering her bread with jam.

Doyeon smiled proudly. She could use a butter knife now!

My sister’s grown so well.

“Be safe, Doyeon.”

He bowed to his mom, who regarded him from behind the refrigerator door, and headed out to school. The air brushing his ears was cold, but the bright morning sunlight showed signs of full spring.

When he arrived, Doyeon approached the window. Everyone had been assigned places the day before with assigned partners, but someone was in his seat talking to a friend.

Doyeon placed his bag on his desk and moved to sit with Kangbin Baek for a while.

But his partner turned around.

Doyeon bit his lip, feeling a little awkward at the sudden eye contact.

Hyunoh Gong had raised his head with a smile on his face.

His new desk partner was sitting by the beaming, sunlit window.