Hope and Despair
Anxiety gripped me. Whether evening fell soon or not no longer mattered. That's just how the human mind works. After discovering something like this, there was no way I could simply head home. I'd found it first—if I left it until tomorrow only for someone to sweep it clean overnight? Just thinking about it was terrifying.
If that happened, I'd regret it for the rest of my life.
Clunk. Rustle. I started lifting nearby flower pots, checking underneath for a hidden key. The door was thick glass covered in faded pink film. In my head I wanted to grab a decent-sized rock and smash it to pieces, but I couldn't. The problem was that it might draw in one or two other farmers lurking nearby. A broken window was common enough that people might shrug it off, but imagine the sound of a glass door shattering. "Oh? Sounds like someone hit the jackpot over there!" Curiosity would pull them in for sure. And that would be the end.
Even if the person who showed up was alone like me, refusing to share would spark a fight. If they had companions, I could lose everything right before my eyes despite finding it first. That was the kind of world we lived in. There might be an unspoken rule that the first discoverer had dibs, but without the strength to protect your claim, it would get taken. If the place hadn't truly gone out of business, the goods inside probably weren't something I could haul out in a day or two. I needed to slip in and out with as little trace as possible. Even if it took days or weeks, I'd move everything. Every last item would be mine.
"Fuck. But it really is abandoned, right?"
Sudden unease crept in.
In the end, unable to find a key, I moved alongside the building. No luck at the front entrance, so the side was unlikely to be any different. As expected, it was just a wall.
"Guess there's only one way then."
Getting in without leaving traces was off the table. I'd have to come back at dawn when no one was around and break the door down.
I’ll bring a few burlap sacks and move like a madman before anyone catches me.
The downside was that I'd have to open every box to minimize volume. The moment you open them, they become used goods. The price drops in half.
Pfft. A laugh slipped out.
"My dreams really are getting ahead of themselves."
I didn't even know how many items were inside, yet here I was worrying about resale value first. For all I knew, the place could be empty.
Eh, good thought. Good thought.
Crunch, crunch. I circled around to the back of the building and moved to the opposite side.
"Hmm… Huh? That?"
And then I saw it. A large outdoor AC unit sitting against the outer wall. Above it, a window. A ventilation window of just the right size—neither too big nor too small.
"Maybe…"
The thought made my heart flutter with excitement.
Up I went. I stepped on the AC unit and climbed. The window sat at exactly the height of my upper body. I tilted my head sideways, pressing it against the glass, then tried lowering my head straight down and twisting my torso at an angle. Anyone watching would have thought I was insane. As I measured the gap between the window's width and my shoulders, joy spread across my face.
"This… I think I can actually do it?!"
Thank god I was a scrawny bastard. Who knew being thin would come in handy? My only real complex—my small frame—had become my greatest advantage in this moment. No one but me would even consider squeezing through a window like this.
Rattle, rattle. Of course the window was locked too. Whoever owned this store had been thorough. It didn't matter. I picked up a rock from the ground and swung it at the latch side of the window.
Crash!
The sharp noise made my neck shrink instinctively as the glass shattered. I flipped the latch down, then pushed open the intact side of the window.
Screeech.
"Perfect!"
With an excited hand I pulled a flashlight from my backpack and swept the beam inside.
"It's a bathroom."
When farming, bathrooms were usually avoided. Unless you planned to rip out the toilet, there was rarely anything valuable, and decades of neglect meant the stench was unbearable. I normally wouldn't even bother opening a door if I suspected a bathroom lay behind it. But this one, though dusty, had no smell and looked clean. It was like someone had thoroughly scrubbed it before abandoning it for years.
The store owner might have been a woman.
Did women usually run adult shops? According to Sherlock Woojin's personal theory, it followed that—
Clean = A woman lived here
People on the intranet claimed women lived dirtier, but that was nonsense.
I poked my head through and shone the light downward. Unlike the other side littered with glass shards, this area beneath the intact window had almost none. Falling from this height shouldn't be too dangerous.
"Nice."
I slipped off my backpack and tossed it inside—wait!
"Shit. That was too fucking close…"
The backpack dangled from my tense fingertips. I felt like I'd aged ten years. Breathing a sigh of relief, I pulled it back, unzipped it, and took out a black plastic bag. I carefully placed the snowballs and hard disks I'd farmed earlier inside and hid the bundle beside the AC unit. Then I cheerfully hurled the now much lighter, empty backpack through the window.
I stuck my head inside, planted my feet on the sill, and with a lot of grunting and wiggling, began to climb through. Once my thighs were inside, I stretched both arms down, touched the floor as I dropped, and rolled forward smoothly to absorb the impact.
Thump. Roll.
"Yah!"
Landing complete. Classic cat landing. I even spread both arms out to the lower left in perfect follow-through. It might make me look like some hidden master with secrets, but it was just something I'd learned in school. They taught history and regular subjects, sure, but realistically, once you became an adult most people had no choice but to farm for a living. So school mostly focused on farming precautions and useful knowledge for scavenging. Since most empty houses had locked doors, you often had to enter through windows. PE class therefore taught various falling techniques for those situations. The cat landing was one of the most practical.
If I hadn't learned it, I would have landed on my head or back and gotten hurt often.
Pat, pat. Pat! I brushed the dust off my clothes from the brief roll and picked up my backpack.
I shone the flashlight toward the door.
"Whew… The air feels completely different. It's chilly. Outside I was desperate to get in, but now that I'm actually here, I'm nervous."
Creeeeak. I carefully opened the door and stepped out. As I walked down the hallway that bent right after the bathroom entrance, the faint light from the open window was cut off, plunging everything into deeper darkness.
Soft, cautious steps. My stride grew narrower. In the desolate silence, the only thing I could rely on was the flashlight's beam.
Soon I emerged from the surprisingly long-feeling short passage and stepped into the main store.
"Whoa… Woaaah…!!"
Oh my god. Oh my god! An exclamation burst from my lips. The flashlight swept back and forth, illuminating everything. A whole new world unfolded before my eyes.
The items visible inside the glass display cases on both sides. Onaholes. Dildos. Even bizarre contraptions. The adult products were all perfectly intact. And in far greater quantity than I'd imagined!
It felt like those adventurers in the fantasy novel I'd once read, discovering an ancient ruin. Was this the feeling they had? These round, long, grotesque objects were treasures more precious to me than gold or jewels.
"Hahaha! Hahahahaha!"
Uncontainable laughter exploded out of me. I ran straight to the onahole display, opened the glass door, and picked one up.
Squish. A strange texture—almost like flesh, yet not quite—clung perfectly to my hand.
"Hahaha! It's real. It really looks like a pussy!"
It even replicated the labia and clitoris. I slid a finger into the narrow hole that seemed to be the entrance.
Tight. I rubbed it side to side, applying force.
"Ooh… It goes in. It actually goes in."
This was insane. So fascinating. If one finger barely fit, how the hell did a dick go in? I wanted to try it so badly I was losing my mind. After fiddling with it excitedly for a while, I put it back and moved to the dildo section.
"Whoa… These are fucking huge."
They were so massive and shaped in ways that made me think if a woman got used to these, she'd never be satisfied with a normal man's dick. Terrifying. As a guy, it was a little demoralizing. When I picked one up, it was surprisingly heavy. Same with the onahole—the material was probably silicone, but it weighed more than expected.
"Moving all this definitely won't happen in a day or two."
I wasn't sure my stamina could handle it. What if I collapsed while carrying everything? It was a pleasant worry to have.
Ah, the storage room!
It suddenly hit me. This couldn't be everything! The storage would surely have new, unopened merchandise set aside for sale. Maybe even more than what was displayed out here.
Hahahahaha. I laughed heartily while examining the dildo under the flashlight beam.
"Good. The more the better. Hahaha."
Whether it took days or a whole week, I'd move it all. Every last piece! Right now I was probably grinning with the same greedy expression as Gollum from that blockbuster movie I'd paid two thousand won to watch years ago, The Lord of the Rings.
The flood of dopamine made even the desolate darkness feel warm and cozy. After returning the dildo to its display, I swept the flashlight around, searching for the storage room.
"Must be that one."
The door in the back. Aside from the bathroom, it was the only other door visible, so there was no confusion. I headed straight for it.
"Oh shit—what the hell is this?"
A display case I passed on the way. It contained dog collars with chains, matching pairs of pink wrist and ankle cuffs, whips, long paddle-like rods, and other objects whose purpose I couldn't begin to guess.
Among them, one thing in particular caught my curiosity. A small belt. I took it out and examined it.
"What is this supposed to be?"
The reason it drew my eye was the round ring attached to the center. Someone must use it if they're selling it, but my shallow knowledge of sex gave me no clues.
It felt solid. Too short for a waist, too long for an arm.
If it's this length, then maybe on the head…?
I didn't understand, but I instinctively lifted it toward my face and it clicked.
"Aha! This must be a gag!"
If you put the round part in your mouth and fastened the belt behind your head, it would fit perfectly.
"Haha! Wow—they really have everything."
A pleasant sense of intellectual satisfaction washed over me, and I broke into a wide grin. There was so much research material here. If I examined everything one by one, I might become a true expert in this field. Along with the descriptive skill that readers at least acknowledged, I'd gain a massive new weapon for writing my erotic novels.
I was excited. I returned it to its place and continued deeper inside. By now the fear that the storage room might be empty had vanished. All I felt was anticipation for how much might be inside.
There's already this much out here. No way the storage is empty.
No chance. Hehehe. I reached the door and grabbed the handle. Slowly, carefully, I applied pressure. Please, please…
The knob turned little by little. It wasn't locked! I twisted it fully and shoved the door open with force.
"It's open! Haha! It o—"
"Kyaaaaak!"
Grab! Crunch—!
"Aaaah! Aaaaaagh—!!"
Something lunged at me. It bit down. What followed was a burning pain that tore through my shoulder.
"Ugh… Aaaaaah…!"
It hurt. It hurt so much. I was terrified. So scared I thought I'd lose my mind. No, it couldn't be. Please, no.
Screaming from the pain and fear, I frantically lifted the flashlight to illuminate whatever was biting my shoulder.
It was a woman. A woman… No. It was a zombie.