Chapter 26
Morning.
The muscle aches spreading through my entire body, along with my hangover, torment my head.
With a groan, I laboriously open my eyes.
I'm indecently dressed, naked except for a single pair of panties.
The memories of yesterday, which felt like a nightmare, come vividly flooding back.
“….”
Fortunately or unfortunately, Kang Ju-hyeok is nowhere beside me.
But his scent and warmth are unmistakably still on the bed.
I remember getting caught touching his phone and being subjected to all sorts of things too obscene to mention,
and I remember bathing with him in the tub, too.
…And when did I fall asleep?
I was so exhausted that I think I nodded off in the water….
“First, that bastard….”
I wish it had all been a dream, but the pounding hangover and pain alone tell me it couldn't have been.
Thankfully, since I slept wearing my panties, it seems I wasn't subjected to anything strange after that.
My breasts, though… well, that couldn't be helped.
I grab a bra and T-shirt from the closet, put them on, and then pull on my pants.
I was about to put on my usual dolphin shorts, but that bastard was definitely in the living room, so I changed into long pants instead.
In the bathroom, I wipe away the gunk from my eyes, tie my hair back, and leave the bedroom.
“Ah, Ha-eun. You're awake?”
“Eek….”
The sight of Kang Ju-hyeok springing up the moment I open the door makes my heart drop.
He isn't wearing a T-shirt, either—just the single pair of panties he bought yesterday.
Having to exchange morning greetings with an exhibitionist fucking pervert sends my mood plummeting.
“Why are you so surprised? Come out. Let's eat.
“…Food? Is there anything to eat at home….”
“I ordered it. It's already lunchtime.”
Startled by his saying it was already lunchtime, I rummage through my pockets, but of course my phone isn't in the clothes I just changed into.
I was about to return to the bedroom to look for it, but the scent of coffee and bread tickling my nose was irresistible, and I followed him without thinking.
When I reach the kitchen, the mozzarella-tomato panini I often eat is waiting on the table beside the coffee he ordered.
…How did you…?”
“Don't women usually like this? They go crazy for cheese and bread.”
He answers without the slightest hesitation, as though it's obvious, but I don't believe a word of it coming from Kang Ju-hyeok.
…This is what I eat most often after Subway.
I could understand how he found the shop, but matching the menu is strange no matter how I look at it.
“Did you happen to go through the trash…?”
“Why would I rummage through that? What would I use it for?”
“….”
I sit at the table with my unresolved suspicions weighing on my chest.
If he hadn't been the one to order it, I wouldn't have thought much of it, but why am I so uneasy?
Kang Ju-hyeok knows me far too well for this to be mere good luck.
…As if he'd seen me somewhere before.
“Hey, I'm going to wash my hands for a moment….”
“Go ahead.”
Unable to shake off this uneasy feeling, I pretend to go to the bathroom and slip away.
From the living room into the hallway.
From the hallway into the bedroom.
I don't even need to rummage through the bed. At the headboard, where a light is attached, my phone is lying there all by itself.
“Haa….”
…Thank goodness.
For a moment, I was so anxious at the thought that he might have done the same thing to me that I could have died.
A woman's phone is full of private things that can never be shown to anyone else.
Of course, it wasn't anything like the audio file that man recorded.
“…?”
Just as I breathed a sigh of relief and was about to turn on my phone, a suspicion suddenly struck me.
…Did I leave it here in the first place?
I distinctly remember putting it in my pocket before going to sleep, but I can't remember much after that.
Before stealing Kang Ju-hyeok's phone, I took mine out for a moment to check the time, and I think I left it somewhere….
“Ah….”
…That uneasy feeling became reality the moment I turned on my phone.
It was the same home screen as always, but
the wallpaper showed Kang Ju-hyeok and me lying in bed under a blanket.
And we were naked.
My breasts weren't visible, but
my body was exposed right up to my collarbones.
“You fucking bastard…!”
The anger I had almost forgotten comes rushing back, and I thunder into the kitchen.
This is beyond any excuse—he's crossed the line!
What kind of shameless thing is this, taking a picture while someone else is asleep…!
“Kang Ju-hyeok!”
“Ah, you saw it, Ha-eun?”
Unable to calm down, I shriek and approach Kang Ju-hyeok, but he calmly and shamelessly chews his brunch, letting my words go in one ear and out the other.
“Are you seriously going to report me…!”
“Why? I only did the same thing to you. Should I report you too, then?”
“I only, damn it, deleted it! But you, th-this—what the hell is this…!”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
Then he suddenly drops his voice,
stands up and looks down at me with frightening eyes.
…Feeling intimidated by his completely naked body,
I try to step backward, but he grabs me by the butt, leaving me no way to escape.
“How can I believe you only deleted the recording? You might have gone through all of someone else's private life and tried to find leverage.”
“You…!”
“That wouldn't be fair, so I only snooped through your private life too. It's not like I pretended I hadn't seen it, either. I even left you a photo as proof, so what's the problem?”
“….”
I can't meet the eyes of the man spouting such utter nonsense while genuinely acting as though what he did were perfectly natural.
So brazen. So forceful.
His gaze held the confidence that he could crush me with a mere flick of his hand.
…That expression of his said he had all my weaknesses in his grasp.
“…Anyway, don't lose your temper first thing in the morning. Sit down and eat first. The coffee cost money too, so drink it.”
“….”
“You like ordering food, don't you? Even though you don't have much money.”
His voice, needling me exactly where it hurt, sounds like the whisper of a devil.
How far must he have dug through my life to tease me about not having money when I live in such a lavish house?
Instagram?
My bank account?
…Maybe even KakaoTalk?
“Don't sit there so stiffly. Hurry up and eat so you can digest it, then we can go to the gym. It's already late, Ha-eun.”
“…W-what?”
“Aren't you going to work out? Ah, having sex once made you lazy. If you don't feel well, do you want to take the day off? I know how to give massages.”
“Hey, Kang Ju-hyeok, what are you talking about?”
“What do you think? …I'm saying I'll pay off some of our poor Ha-eun's debt for her.”
“….”
My ominous premonition had, unpleasantly enough, come true yet again.
…This man has clearly stripped my entire private life bare.
Even if he took advantage of me while I slept and searched my bank account, there was no way he could have found out about my debt.
“Hey, but you've worked for the club for years. How are you still living with debt to your younger sibling?”
Because it was debt to my younger sibling.
“…Would you move in if I charged only 500,000 won a month to live in this house?”
“I'd live here even if it cost two million. …How much was the deposit?”
“…Why ask when you already know?”
…Twelve million won.
Not too little, not too much—an amount within reach.
A debt I would have to repay someday.
Though I had no idea when that would be.
“You should've saved up around twenty million, then. What were you doing, borrowing money from the landlord just to move in….”
“Ah, shut up!”
At first, I wondered if my younger sibling was unusually worried about me.
I'd had a huge fight with my father and left home, and when my sibling offered me a room with a twenty-million-won deposit and 500,000 won in monthly rent, I thought they were crazy.
I couldn't understand why they'd bought one place on each of the floors above and below, then rented a room to me.
“Shouldn't you be the one to shut up? Your sibling really needles you. They're always telling you to do something.”
“It's none of your business, you fucking bastard…!”
For the first time, I felt grateful to my younger sibling, and when I moved into this house, my debt was only five million won.
It wasn't exactly money I'd borrowed; it was the amount my sibling had simply let me pay less on the deposit because I was short.
I figured I could somehow earn around 500,000 won a month, so I had nothing to worry about back then.
Besides, my sibling even gave me a card to use whenever I ran out of living expenses.
But no matter how carefully I tried to spend, with no money coming in, my debt only kept growing.
Installing a soundproof room because I was annoyed by how increasingly my sibling looked down on me was also a huge mistake.
…Once the guitar was added to that, it had cost a fucking fortune.
“Sure, it's none of my business. Still, it's a little surprising, isn't it? I thought you were doing really well, but I didn't know you lived poorer than me.”
“….”
I couldn't say anything back to Kang Ju-hyeok as he sneered at me like that.
…That was also why, despite this man pestering and flirting with me so persistently, I hadn't been able to reject him outright.
Among the men I knew, he was the most reasonable.
I won't deny that I had the shallow hope that maybe I could occasionally get a meal out of him.
I had never lived that way before, but when you're struggling for money, what can you do when you start becoming like that?
Besides, he had said he had a girlfriend.
He had seemed surprisingly normal, too.
He had seemed much safer than that trainer bastard who ignored my angry outbursts because all he wanted was to sleep with me.
It turned out I was the one who had been blinded.
“Oh, and you said you don't even use Instagram. You're pretty good at it, huh?”
“Hey, you crazy…!”
“I couldn't find anything when I searched, so I wondered what was up, but you sure know how to have fun with your friends. …You talk behind their backs pretty well, too. Hey, how could I possibly complain about a younger sibling who even lets you live in a house like this for practically nothing….”
“That's because you haven't dealt with them…!”
I was a stupid, pathetic, brain-dead idiot for thinking I could get a meal out of a man who had meticulously dug through and exposed all my shameful secrets.
…I resent the past me who thought a man spouting things like that seemed decent, without knowing anything about him.
For years now,
he had been a man who did nothing but harm my life.
Why had I let myself be deceived by a man like this…?
“I'd like to experience it, though. Will you help me?”
“…What?”
“I may not have a job, but I do have twelve million won.”
“….”
Am I going to fall for it again?
…I know that if I nod along to the devil's whisper, it will steal my soul.
There was no way that man would do me a favor without getting something in return.
Why.
“I said earlier that I'd live here even if it cost two million. …Will you take it?”
“….”
“I'm not telling you to leave. …As promised, I won't touch you first, so what do you say?”
Was I afraid that if I didn't nod, he would take something even more horrible than my soul?
…If it was that man,
if it was Kang Ju-hyeok,
he would absolutely go that far.