Chapter 8
“Can you drink any more⋯?”
“It’s okay. It’s okay. Cocktails don’t give you hangovers.”
With my eyes completely unfocused, I gulped down the last cocktail beside her.
Then I dropped my head onto the table as if I’d passed out.
It was actually her who was drunk,
but I was drunk on the atmosphere too, after all.
“Hey, Kang Juhyeok! You’re drunk!”
“⋯I’m drinking like this because I’m drunk. I don’t normally drink this way.”
“⋯Are you okay?”
“I wasn’t okay, but I’m a little better now⋯.”
The topic I had briefly changed to get closer to her also circled back, highlighting my pitiful situation once more.
Above all, I was a lonely man who had just been dumped.
She was a compassionate, considerate woman, kind enough to embrace such a pitiful man.
Even the bond we had built atop our intoxication by drinking together.
In this play, with this setup and backdrop,
Seo Ha-eun could never ignore me.
I had no reason to call off this enjoyable game, either.
“Where am I supposed to sleep from now on⋯.”
“⋯Aren’t you going home?”
“If I go, I’ll have to see her face. How can I go⋯.”
“Y-you lived together?”
“⋯Didn’t I mention it?”
“You didn’t!”
“Then I guess I didn’t, huh⋯.”
I erased the safest escape route as well.
I took away her options.
Until she had no choice
but to sleep with me.
“⋯Ha-eun.”
“Why?”
“Could you let me sleep for a few hours? ⋯I feel like I’m going to die from sleepiness.”
“⋯L-let you sleep? But it’s daytime.”
“When I drink, I get sleepy, so I feel like I’m going to die. Right now⋯.”
“⋯.”
The fact that it was still a bright afternoon was an excellent ploy for lulling her into lowering her guard.
If it had been the dead of night, she would have sensed danger too, but the sunlight blazing outside the building would dispel that sense of danger.
She wasn’t letting a man into her home; she was merely taking in a heavily drunk person whose movements had slowed.
In this play, I was the defenseless one, not her.
At least in the play.
“⋯Hey, can you stand up for now?”
“Uh, probably⋯.”
“Then try standing up. Stop drinking and let’s go.”
“Where⋯?”
“I’ll just let you sleep for a little while. Get up.”
No one could expect her to lift this hulking frame, but I obediently rose in response to her touch.
Even while barely keeping myself upright, I pulled out my wallet, paid the bill, and staggered out of the restaurant.
“You really can walk⋯? You look like you’re going to fall⋯.”
“I’m fine. I won’t fall. I won’t⋯.
I trudged along so laboriously that thump-thump suited my steps better than shuffle-shuffle, while peering through half-lidded eyes at the direction Seo Ha-eun was leading me.
I wondered if it might be, but was it really there?
Even as my certainty that I was mooching off my little sister grew stronger, the thought of sleeping with a beautiful woman in a nice house was making my drunkenness fade.
Of course, the more it faded,
the more shameless my act became.
***
Barely seven or eight minutes from the gym.
Her house was only a fifteen-minute walk from mine.
Anyone could tell it was an affluent neighborhood.
The building’s structure was practically that of a fortress.
Its design looked blatantly expensive, blending a style medieval European nobles might have liked with a modern sensibility.
The problem wasn’t merely that the complex had a convenience store; it even had a supermarket, a gym, and a screen-golf facility.
There were security guards in the lobby, and they even checked people’s identities, giving me a visceral sense of what it meant to live in a different world.
Thanks to that, my certainty about her had now become an established fact.
This was a house so expensive that neither Seo Ha-eun, let alone the director, could have afforded it.
It was definitely Seo Jia’s house.
I was a little astonished that having an enormously wealthy family alone could make the scenery of one’s life look this different.
“⋯Hey, Kang Juhyeok. I’m sorry, but I can’t let you sleep here until tonight⋯.”
“Okay⋯.”
But I was even more astonished that Seo Ha-eun had finally felt a sense of danger only after dragging a man nearly thirty centimeters taller than herself all the way here.
⋯I’d honestly been only half-convinced that she had no dating experience, but maybe it was true.
Judging by her behavior, she might not have had any experience with men at all.
It wouldn’t have been strange if being stalked in high school had caused her to shut the door on sex.
“The elevator’s over there⋯. It’s the thirty-seventh floor⋯.”
Shedding my mask here was one option, but to complete the perfect performance, I leaned against the wall.
Then, when the elevator stopped with a ding, I stepped out and stole a sidelong glance at the keypad lock Seo Ha-eun tapped in the luxurious hallway.
‘940919⋯.’
It was probably her date of birth.
I was dumbfounded by a password with not the slightest trace of security, unlike the meticulous security of this apartment.
⋯Honestly, setting aside her face and figure, Seo Ha-eun herself didn’t fit in this space.
Neither did I, for that matter.
“⋯.”
Seo Ha-eun had gone so stiff she couldn’t even offer a greeting.
I suppressed the urge to touch the beige hair visible behind her, then let out a dying groan to put her at ease and reinforce the impression that I was drunk.
“⋯C-come in⋯.”
At last, when she offered me a welcome, I shoved her aside, took off my shoes, walked into the living room, and flopped down on the sofa without a trace of manners.
I covered my eyes with my right arm and let my left arm fall over the side of the sofa.
As if advertising, ‘I’m out cold,’
I continued to reassure her.
“Hey, are you asleep⋯?”
“⋯.”
Without answering even that, I breathed shallowly and rhythmically while anticipating what she would do.
The front door had already closed, so it wouldn’t actually have been difficult to rape her right then and there.
But there was no need to do that.
Even without resorting to such an extreme method,
I could force myself on her just as violently.
“Ah, I⋯. I must be crazy, seriously⋯.”
But as she looked toward me, thinking I was asleep, she began stamping her feet and slapping her own cheeks.
Though my eyes were closed and I could hear only the sounds, judging by her panic, she seemed to find me far more dangerous than I had expected.
⋯Was this woman really inexperienced?
If she had drunk with a heartbroken man and brought him all the way home, that was practically an outright invitation to sex.
I had never seen such a naïve reaction in my life, to the point that I was more flustered than she was.
“What should I do, this⋯?”
She bustled around for a while, then threw a blanket she had found somewhere at me and disappeared inside after opening the room door.
⋯She would be much harder to make a move on once the alcohol wore off.
While I was wondering how long I should keep pretending to sleep, I heard the door open once more, followed by Seo Ha-eun’s voice.
“⋯Hello? Ah, Jia⋯. W-where are you right now? Are you upstairs?”
I couldn’t hear the voice on the other end, but I knew who it was.
⋯Seo Jia.
Her younger sister.
“You’re not home? You’re out? Ah, but that won’t do⋯.”
I could piece together the situation, if only vaguely, as soon as I heard that brief phone conversation.
Seo Jia lived upstairs.
Since it would be hard to find a better home than this, it made sense that Jia would live upstairs if the sisters weren’t living together.
“You know, you drank⋯. Things have gotten a little strange right now, you know?”
She was clearly extremely uneasy about being alone in the house with a man and intended to call her younger sister.
⋯This was bad.
This development hadn’t been in my plans, and it was far too dangerous.
“Ah⋯, y-you can’t? You still have a schedule?”
But unfortunately, the popular idol seemed to have no intention of responding to her older sister’s desperate plea for rescue.
I wasn’t particularly her fan, but just this once, I wanted to cheer her on fervently.
⋯Maybe I should try to meet her if I got the chance later.
She really was fucking pretty.
“It’s almost three now⋯. Six? You’ll come at six?”
Three hours.
It was a little shorter than a motel’s daytime rental, but still more than enough time to satisfy my desires.
Using coercion would now carry more risk, but this development wasn’t bad at all.
As a bonus,
I might even get to brag about it later.
“I know. Ah, yeah. Don’t get annoyed⋯. Sorry. Okay, okay. I’ll use the card reasonably. I just ate a meal. A meal. ⋯You want me to buy something and cook it myself? I said I know⋯.”
As I listened to Seo Ha-eun’s voice groveling excessively to her younger sister, I sorted out, one by one, the things I could say and the things I shouldn’t.
⋯How should I approach her so she wouldn’t be able to refuse me?
How should I stimulate her so she would feel guilty toward me?
How should I touch her so she would feel sexually aroused?
How should I soothe her so she would be satisfied?
I pondered and organized everything.
In order to grab those voluptuous breasts, too full even to picture in my imagination.
“⋯Fucking bitch, seriously⋯.”
I was startled when Seo Ha-eun hurled a string of curses immediately after hanging up, but the sounds that followed were far more important, leaving me no time to be surprised.
“Ah⋯, I’m breaking out in a cold sweat. Seriously⋯.”
The door flew open and slammed shut again.
A faint rustle, the sound of clothing brushing against clothing, tickled my sensitive hearing.
Soon, the sound of water striking skin with a rushing shaaaa⋯ stirred my lust.
⋯I didn’t know whether the door was locked.
But either way, it didn’t matter.
I carry nail clippers and an ear pick around with me, you know.
I never actually have any use for the ear pick,
but just in case.
“Phew⋯.”
I let out a long sigh, concealed my presence, and stripped off all my clothes.
Without hiding my stiffly erect cock, I took the ear pick from my wallet in my left hand and trudged toward the sound of the water.
Muttering, “Please put it in,” I inserted the metal into the tiny hole in the door and shoved it open.
⋯Was this woman insane?
She hadn’t even locked it.
“⋯Uh, uh⋯?”
Without even needing a contingency,
I could take in the sight with ease.
⋯An absurdly beautiful pair of pink nipples.
Voluptuous breasts shaped like water balloons rather than water droplets.
The mole on the underside of her breast that seemed to beg to be squeezed.
Taut buttocks practically acting cute, as if asking to be spanked.
The woman who had hated me so much,
the naked, water-soaked Seo Ha-eun.