Chapter 56
Early in the morning, in a cramped studio apartment, Lee Hyun-ah was breathing heavily.
The bed she was lying on was damp with sweat, and used tissues were strewn all around it.
“Haa… haa...”
Even after she finished masturbating, she couldn't get up, still lost in the afterglow.
Instead, she stroked her pussy once more to soothe her loneliness.
“Haaah…”
The moment her finger touched her clitoris, her desire surged again.
Her body heated up as she remembered the dream she'd had that day.
“Nooo…”
A dependable, supportive colleague
A colleague who had never disappointed her
A colleague who always trusted her
A colleague she had grown almost as close to as family
It was a dream in which he raped her.
He overpowered her by force when she refused him, saying she had a boyfriend, then forcibly stripped her and took her virginity.
He mocked her as she cried out that it hurt, thrust his hips without stopping, and ejaculated inside her.
“…Isn't that a little too embellished?”
In truth, it hadn't been quite that extreme. It was difficult to even call it rape.
It was true that he had forced things, but she had been the one to allow him.
Besides, far from hurting… it had felt incredibly good, even though it was her first time.
Much more so than when she masturbated.
“Ahh… Mister…”
Every time his hot, thick cock pushed through her tight virgin pussy, a pleasure she'd never felt before sank into her brain.
Her pupils naturally became unfocused, and she drooled with her mouth hanging open.
At that moment, the only thing she could do was make lewd sounds.
But he showed her no consideration whatsoever.
Instead, he pounded into her so roughly it felt as though her cervix might be torn open, and his assault made it difficult even to breathe.
“Hngh… haa…”
But that felt good too.
She liked how he lost himself in her body and clung to her like a madman,
how he thrust his hips like a dog in heat, and how he ejaculated inside her.
She liked all of it.
“Haaaaang!”
She was satisfied by the fact that he was obsessed with her.
…Even if it was only a dream.
“I must be crazy…”
“I did like having Mister depend on me, but… I didn't mean for him to depend on me this much…”
Having finished masturbating for the last time, she let out a deep sigh and got up.
Ignoring the fluid running down her thighs, she headed for the bathroom.
She planned to take a shower and regain control of her scattered thoughts.
“Mister…”
But Lee Hyun-ah recalled the scene from her dream again,
and ended up touching her pussy one more time.
***
Once she'd finished showering, her mind cleared again.
Whether she'd enjoyed it or not, it had only been a dream. It wasn't worth worrying about.
She decided to think of it as nothing more than an incident caused by sexual frustration.
Besides, she had a boyfriend, didn't she?
Thinking about it for too long would be disrespectful to her boyfriend.
Even if they were in the middle of a cold war.
[Minwoo♥: Hyun-ah, are you awake?]
Perhaps because she had been thinking about her boyfriend, Minwoo's message was waiting for her when she finished drying her hair.
Minwoo hadn't contacted her since their huge fight a few days ago, but it seemed he had finally caved and messaged her first.
“Hmph! You can't live without me after all, can you?”
Feeling triumphant, Lee Hyun-ah opened the chat with a broad smile and started to reply.
But his next messages wiped that smile away.
[Minwoo♥: I've really been unable to sleep, thinking about this…]
[Minwoo♥: Just come down here.]
[Minwoo♥: Our company is setting up a new department related to Hunters, you know?]
[Minwoo♥: Quit being a Hunter and work here.]
[Minwoo♥: My father gave his permission too.]
She was angry.
Her insides churned with rage.
She hated that her boyfriend still didn't understand her feelings.
She hated that he simply announced his decision to her without asking.
The way he treated her as though she were his doll disgusted her.
What she wanted was encouragement that would give her strength, not practical advice.
And realistically, she thought she was more than capable of continuing to work as a Hunter.
Everything had gone smoothly since she started working with him.
But her boyfriend didn't trust her.
Without even seeing what she was capable of, he had jumped to conclusions and forced her to give up.
The kind, considerate side of him she'd once loved had disappeared long ago.
"So annoying…"
With an irritated expression, she called him.
She wanted to yell at him right away.
But then
[Minwoo♥: Hyun-ah. I can't talk ri…[Oppa! Ah, sorry, are you on a call?]]
[……]
[Sorry, I'll call you in a little while.]
“Huh?”
-Click.
An unfamiliar woman's voice had come through over the phone.
A voice that sounded far too familiar, along with the way she'd called him Oppa…
And it was far too early for him to have gone to work…
A two-syllable word she didn't even want to consider came to mind.
Both hands gripping her phone began to tremble.
Tears fell onto the screen.
“Y-you bastard… Sob… This time… I-I believed you… Sniff.”
Her terrible past came rushing back.
She felt as though she had been abandoned all over again.
She had thought their relationship had grown close again after that incident, like the ground hardening after rain,
but it seemed that had only been her own delusion.
He called her again, but she didn't answer. She ignored his messages too.
He kept contacting her without pause, but she ignored him to the very end.
She was afraid that if she answered, the horrible truth would be revealed.
[Minwoo♥: Hyun-ah, it's a misunderstanding. Pick up.]
[Minwoo♥: I told you, she's just a coworker. I'm at work right now.]
[Minwoo♥: It's really not what you think.]
[Minwoo♥: Huh? You trust me, right?]
She couldn't trust him.
If it had been the old him, she would have believed him, but lately he had been steadily losing her trust.
And then an incident like this had happened.
Suspicion naturally led to more suspicion, eventually hardening into certainty.
“No wonder he's been cold for a while.”
“And the way he's been talking so rudely lately…”
“Was he desperately trying to break up with me?”
“So that's why he told me to come down—he wanted to say it to my face.”
“Now it all makes sense. You bastard… Y-you bastard! Sob…”
The composure she'd barely managed to regain fell apart again.
Her mind was shattered, she was in agony, and she could no longer endure it.
In the end, she blocked him.
Even seeing his messages was too much for her.
She staggered to the bed and collapsed, and the damp bedding welcomed her.
A dirty, unpleasant smell hung in the air around her.
But strangely, she didn't hate the smell.
The moment she caught it, she naturally thought of him.
It was him—the man who had pounced on her in her dream.
“Mister…”
She longed for healing.
She wanted peace in her shattered heart.
To achieve that, she needed him.
[Mister! Thank you for yesterday!]
[(A cat bowing its head emoji)]
With trembling hands, she barely managed to send a message, pressing each letter one at a time.
She pretended to be cheerful. She didn't want him to realize how much pain she was in.
[The hangover meal was amazing, too!]
[(A photo of an empty pot)]
She claimed she had eaten food she hadn't even touched.
It felt wasteful, but her stomach was churning too much for her to eat.
She apologized inwardly, poured it down the sink, took a picture, and sent it.
[Thanks to you, I'm completely recovered!]
[(A cat saluting emoji)]
Far from recovering, she was only in pain.
To heal, she needed him.
Only his praise and gratitude, only his dependence, could serve as her cure.
But…
No matter how long she waited, no reply came.
There was no healing for her.
The longer she waited, the more miserable she became.
She tried to keep messaging him, but it was the same.
The number 1 beside her messages never disappeared.
“D-did Mister start to hate me? Did he only pretend to be close to me even though he didn't actually like someone like me?”
A terrible thought occurred to her.
Normally, she would have laughed and dismissed it as nonsense, but now it was difficult to deny.
Her self-esteem began to crumble little by little.
“Oh! He read it!”
At that moment, the situation changed.
He had read her message.
Hopeful thoughts began to surface again.
“Ha, haha… There's no way Mister hates me!”
But that hope was shattered immediately.
Even after seeing her message, he didn't reply.
It had never happened until yesterday.
With her mind in ruins, she took even the smallest things seriously.
She couldn't consider that there might be another explanation.
Instead, she ended up thinking that he, too, had grown tired of her.
“L-lie! That's not true…! D-did I do something wrong? Idiot! What did I do? Ah… please… don't do this. Please, Mister!”
She cried out tearfully.
But he couldn't hear her, and there was still no reply.
“A-again! I have to change his mind! I have to make him think about me all the time! No, so he thinks only of me! What should I do? How can I do it? Food! Should I at least buy him a meal?! Somewhere expensive… What did Mister like again?”
She kept contacting him like a child throwing a tantrum, but he continued to ignore her.
A hollow laugh escaped her. She felt so pathetic.
It felt as though she had fallen into hell overnight.
In the end, she gave up, turned off her phone, and burrowed beneath the blankets.
She became terrified of going out into the world.
-Bzzz
But then, a lifeline of hope was thrown to her.
[Sorry, I'm kind of sick right now. I don't have the energy to deal with anything, so I'm going to lie down all day. Let's eat together next time.]
He had contacted her.
All her worries had been completely unfounded.
He had only been sick… She had overreacted.
“Idiot! O-of course! It makes perfect sense! I should have trusted Mister! That's right… Mister depends on me so much… There's no way he'd do that. Right, right?”
Her anxious heart calmed, and her trembling hands grew still.
The painful emotions disappeared, and a smile kept forming at the corners of her mouth.
“Hehe… Of course, of course. Mister and I are in a relationship built on trust.”
After ending the conversation, she crawled out from under the blankets.
She looked completely different from before she had climbed in, and at the same time, she looked as though she had made up her mind about something.
“But… that's not enough.”
“I need a deeper, stronger trust.”
“Something strong enough that this won't shake it.”
“I have to make Mister depend on me even more.”
“…He did say he was sick, didn't he?”
She ran to her desk and turned on her laptop.
Then she opened a map online and began searching through her chat room on her smartphone.
“Mister said he lived in this neighborhood…”
“…Exclude the apartments. He said he could see the Sun Guild headquarters from the rooftop, so… exclude this place too…”
“…He said the chadol-jjamppong he ate two weeks ago was on sale… Ah, this is the Chinese restaurant. It's a chain… There are two locations in this neighborhood. He said the delivery took twenty minutes, so… he's within this area…”
“…He said there was a police substation nearby. If I assume it's a five-minute walk, exclude this place and this one…”
“…He often eats convenience-store food. The store that sells the products he recommended is Yoo's Convenience Store. He said he only went to the closest one, so… somewhere in this area…”
“…That leaves two places. But he said construction started nearby the day before yesterday, so…”
“Ah, found it.”