Screaming in the Dark
Creating a work of art takes an enormous amount of effort. And when that creation has to match someone else's taste, the effort is staggering — and the stress that comes with it is equal, if not greater.
She pressed her temple hard with her fingers.
"Rejected again?"
"…Yeah. It's exhausting."
Years of seniority had piled up, and the woman who had once been her mentor now felt almost like an equal. The formal speech was the only thing that still marked the difference between them.
"That's brutal. How many times is this already?"
"…I don't remember. Five, maybe?"
Behind her shoulder came the soft sound of coffee being sipped.
"So what was it this time?"
"They want it bright and elegant, but clean, and something that jumps out at you."
"Hah."
A laugh drained of all energy, then a hand came down and patted her shoulder twice before the woman wandered back to her own desk without another word. Why did she keep touching other people's shoulders like that? A sigh slipped out of her.
Quitting time was already sliding past, but whether she would actually get to leave was anyone's guess, and the uncertainty made her restless. What was Heeyeon doing right now?
Not being able to call or message her was a real problem. She wanted to get home as fast as possible and just hold her.
"Uuuugh…!"
She stretched her arms high into the air with a groan, and the team leader glanced at the clock with exaggerated drama before gathering up her coat.
"Oh, look at the time. Shall we head out? Slowly? Ah — Inha, did you finish that?"
"Not yet…"
"Hmm. Well, take your time. We've still got more than a week left… it's just the final stretch."
"…I'll stay and finish it before I go."
She hammered at the keyboard for no good reason. Her eyes weren't even on the monitor — it was pure frustration.
"No, no. You can do it at home."
"…"
How much more did this woman want from her, assigning work that was supposed to be done after she clocked out? She managed her expression with effort and nodded.
While the team leader made a show of fussing around and slowly filtering out of the office, Inha's leg bounced under the desk. The clock in the bottom-right corner of the monitor read 7:00 p.m. She was getting hungry herself — how hungry must Heeyeon be by now?
Only after the noisy team leader had finally vanished did a head poke out from over the half-demolished-looking partition wall.
Heeyeon's former mentor. She glanced around carefully, then crossed over the partition with the cautious steps of a student sneaking into another class during break. Surely she's not coming to me — Inha thought, saving her work just in case. The destination turned out to be right beside her.
"Haa."
Ah. She missed Heeyeon.
"Um, hello. I'm Heeyeon's senior…"
"Yes?"
"Well, I heard you two are still in contact…"
"Ah — we're not really in contact. I just see her posts on social media."
"Is that so… She won't take our calls at all. No — her phone's completely off. I thought maybe she'd still get DMs."
This wasn't a school or an academy. If the company phone didn't work after a few tries, you were supposed to give up. Maybe Heeyeon's low salary was simply too attractive a figure for that team's manager and the accounting department to let go of.
"…I'll try reaching out, I guess."
She pictured Heeyeon's phone, sitting on top of the kitchen ventilation fan in the first-floor living room — a place Heeyeon could never reach. The smashed phone had been too awkward to just throw away, so she'd hidden it there.
Knowing full well it would never be seen, sending a message still felt ridiculous. With a touch of irritation, she typed out a request for contact on Heeyeon's social media right in front of the woman, then snapped her phone shut.
"Ahaha… Well then… Yes. Take care."
"Sure~."
Half-hearted. The moment Heeyeon's former senior returned to her seat, Inha double-checked that everything was saved and shut down the computer. She gathered her things in a rough sweep and left the office, already wondering what Heeyeon usually ate for dinner.
At the free parking lot nearby — which is to say, the alley where she'd roughly parked her compact car — she grabbed the door handle and climbed in. A mechanical voice crackled through the speaker connected to the dashcam.
Impact file recorded while parked.
No need to check. She'd probably just shut the door a little too hard on her way in that morning.
If there was a real problem, she could look into it later at her leisure. This car's dashcam stored footage for a full month. Of course, ever since she'd started dating Heeyeon, she'd swapped in a slightly more expensive SD card to stretch that to three months.
Maybe the devil had overheard how desperately she wanted to see Heeyeon.
The traffic was thick. She tapped her fingers against the steering wheel, but strangely, her mood wasn't bad at all. It was a different kind of satisfaction from the usual end-of-workday happiness, and a soft little laugh slipped out of her.
Fortunately, the drive home didn't take long. Once you cleared the crowded main roads, people peeled off toward their own houses one by one, and for someone who lived a little farther out, watching the streets empty was its own kind of entertainment.
She drove carefully through the quiet residential streets of a small neighborhood populated mostly by the elderly, wary of scratching the car, and arrived at her front door.
Ah. She'd forgotten to buy dinner. Hmm.
She climbed the five low steps, opened the front door, tossed her bag roughly near the entrance, and headed straight for the kitchen.
She opened the refrigerator, found nothing worth cooking with, sighed, and climbed to the second floor with a faint sense of guilt.
She punched in the passcode on the interior door — a door that felt slightly out of place inside a house. Installing a front door without calling anyone in had been a nightmare. Just thinking about it still gave her chills, but it had worked out well in the end.
When she opened it, the air was a little colder than downstairs.
She climbed the creaking stairs, passed the bathroom, and arrived at the door where Heeyeon would be. She took a long breath, gripped the handle, and turned it.
The soundproofing material packed into the hinges crumpled with a soft crunch — and immediately Heeyeon's sweet scent and her voice came flooding through.
"Aaaah!!! Kyaaaaaaah!"
Ah. How lovely. Was she that happy to see her?
Before any more sound could leak out, she hurried inside, flipped on the light, and shut the door.
She couldn't see. She couldn't see anything in front of her.
Because she couldn't see a single thing, her own screams somehow seemed to come from beside her — even though her mouth was right there below her face.
Was this a hallucination? Was she actually screaming?
All she'd done was turn off the lights in the room and stop hearing any sound at all. So why was her own voice coming from somewhere else?
"Aaaaaaah!!!"
She screamed. The mere fact that sound was reaching ears that had gone completely muffled was a relief, so she kept screaming.
Her wrists could only turn half as far as usual in this awkward position, but she poured every ounce of strength into yanking at the blanket. A sharp throb of pain shot through her injured fingers.
She closed her eyes. Nothing. She opened them. Still nothing. Eventually she couldn't tell whether her eyes were open or shut at all, and only when she pressed her face into the pillow did she realize they were open.
Not a breath of air stirred. Nothing registered on her skin, so she rubbed herself against the blanket. The hand that had been pulling at it went slack and limp — then she brought it between her legs, and sensation struck her mind like lightning.
So she screamed with her mouth while twisting her body and touching herself. The position forced her wrists to their absolute limit just to reach, but her body was strangely hypersensitive.
She fretted at the hood of her clit with just the tip of a finger — and came.
In the orgasm she squeezed her eyes shut and decided that the reason she couldn't see was because her eyes were closed.
The sweet climax scraped her mind clean, and in the silence that rushed back afterward, she had the irrational sense that something was about to leap out of the darkness.
So the only thing left to do was scream again. When she drew a deep breath, a faint vibration rose from the floor, from the bed frame, and she held the air trapped in her lungs — then, clinging to the delusion that nothing was wrong, she screamed.
And then the door burst open. Suddenly the world in front of her was bright. The eyes she'd thought were closed had been open all along.
"Heeyeon. What are you doing?"
Unnie's voice. The screaming cut off at once.
"U-Unnie. T-turn on the light. Please?"
"Wow, this really works. I saw it online."
Unnie said it as she walked toward her, closing the door behind her.
"Ah — aah — no, don't close the door. Don't close it…!"
In that brief taste of sight, every sense came flooding back. All that remained was the terror that the earlier fear might return.
"…"
Unnie said nothing. Her eyes — ah, no. She was keeping her eyes open.
"What am I supposed to do when it works this well? Did you have some kind of mental illness before this?"
"P-please turn on the light."
"Heh. Should I turn it on for you?"
"Yes — yes…! Please…!"
Something cold suddenly touched her cheek. She curled in on herself as tightly as she could.
"Ah, here it is. It really is pitch black. I've got my eyes wide open."
"…"
"Give me a kiss. Right here."
Something came close in a rush. The scent of shampoo and perfume was so pleasant that, even though she couldn't see a thing, she pushed her lips forward and stretched her neck out.
Something met her mouth. A soft giggle, and only after a long moment did the light blaze on.
Unnie's face was scrunched against the brightness, but her mouth was smiling as she came toward her.
Then she grabbed Heeyeon's legs and heaved them up, flipping her body over. Heeyeon's ankles settled over Unnie's shoulders, and her bound hands, held at roughly the same height, brushed against Unnie's collarbone, her throat, somewhere. Between her legs, against the soft inner skin of her thighs, Unnie's breath touched her and raised goosebumps.
"Did you masturbate?"
Her face flushed scarlet in an instant, and even though her neck was bent so far her chin pressed into her collarbone and breathing was a little hard, she nodded vigorously. She just wanted to surrender her body to the pleasure her five senses were offering.
Ah — would her double chin show? The thought struck her out of nowhere.