Chapter 53
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 53
The tips of their noses brushed. As her breath hitched, her lips parted, and something she’d never dared to imagine forced its way inside. Hot and slick, it pushed past her teeth and explored her mouth without restraint.
“Hh!”
Her back was pressed against the wall, but the mountain of a man before her didn’t budge no matter how much she struggled. He sucked on her lips, wetting their dry, chapped surface with his saliva. By the time she realized it was his tongue sweeping through her mouth, tangling with her own, her mind went completely blank.
Her education had not been lacking.
She had read countless books and learned from her master how to walk in silence and perceive the movements of others.
But she had never learned anything like this.
Why they would press their lips together and suck, why he was licking the inside of her mouth. Why her breath grew so ragged. Why the wet sounds echoing in her ears were so unbearable.
Was this what Oscar had intended to do earlier, in that crowded place?
She was too overwhelmed to do anything but endure the onslaught. Then, the assault, which felt like it would last forever, stopped as if it had never happened. The hands cupping her cheeks were gone, and the lips that had seemed ready to devour her whole pulled away.
Seo-ah leaned against the wall, gasping for breath, while Oscar stood blankly, staring at the ceiling. Through his thin gown, his solid chest rose and fell in violent bursts.
“Fucking hell…”
Muttering the low curse, Oscar looked down at Seo-ah and laughed.
“Right?”
“……”
The flickering light made everything seem precarious.
The woman leaning against the wall, and the man blocking her path.
Both seemed captured by the moment.
Then, the man turned first. He walked away with a frightening calm, his earlier ferocity—like a raging sea—now seeming like an illusion. He headed toward a room from which a palpable chill emanated.
Beyond that room, there was not a single point of light, not a hint of warmth.
To Seo-ah, it looked as if Oscar were walking into darkness itself. His steps toward that lightless, cold void were terribly familiar.
She didn’t know why she followed him.
Was it because the darkness she saw beyond him was so familiar it wasn't frightening? Or because she had no other choice? Or was it because, foolishly, she felt as if she were being left alone again?
When she came to her senses, she was simply walking behind him, toward the darkness.
Her steps only halted when the man walking ahead of her stopped.
Oscar stood still, his thoughts pooling with a deathly chill, then turned only his head to look back.
“Guess it wasn't so fucked up for you, huh?”
He stared at the seemingly speechless Seo-ah, then laughed and started walking again. After melting completely into the shadows, he turned to face her.
Standing with his back to the darkness, he seemed to be both warning her not to enter and tempting her to come in.
The naive Outsider finally stepped toward the churning misfortune. She walked right into a place devoid of warmth and light, entirely of her own accord.
The moment she crossed the threshold into the darkness, Oscar felt the thread he had barely managed to mend snap once more.
There were all sorts of ways to ruin one’s life.
But what did that have to do with him?
The only passage through which light and warmth could leak was now closed.
He let out a long breath and calmly turned around. There stood a woman who didn't belong in this room, this sanctuary of death.
The woman who had walked into his room on her own two feet.
He felt something that had been simmering within him finally burst.
The foolish impulse that had driven him to kiss her now felt vindicated. So, what was the point in suppressing this desire that was growing to a grotesque size?
“She’s asking to be played with.”
The master of the sanctuary whispered with a captivating smile.
“Alright, let’s play.”
I wonder how you'll react, how you'll change—you, who lost your mind over a simple kiss.
After all, I'm unbearably curious.
“Undress.”
It was cold.
The moment she stepped into Oscar's bedroom, Seo-ah felt it was colder than all the winters of her life combined. But the place colder than his bedroom was his bathroom.
A pale chill seemed to emanate from the black stone bathtub. Like in the dead of winter, her breath fogged with every exhale.
Seo-ah unconsciously went to pull her collar tighter, then froze. The hand she had raised to tighten her collar was instead clutching Oscar's gown. As if broken, she stared blankly at the thin, smooth fabric.
Could this be a dream?
In truth, nothing had felt real from the moment she met Oscar in that crowded place. Her body felt as if it were half-floating, her feet treading on air. Wondering if it really was a dream, Seo-ah looked around, and her eyes fell on a large, ornate mirror.
A splendid, gold-framed mirror reflected her image without the slightest distortion.
Stain-covered shoes, a wrinkled skirt, an upper garment… Her gaze slid upward, to her impossibly tangled hair, where a red ribbon clung precariously.
Seo-ah staggered toward the mirror. She tore her gaze from the end of the ribbon and faced her own reflection for the first time in a long while. Her deathly pale face looked just like a ghost's, yet strangely, her lips alone were as red as the ribbon.
Her crimson lips conjured the memory of a moment that felt just as red.
“Undress.”
She couldn't immediately grasp the meaning of the word that dug into her ears.
“Uh, uh…”
Should I go to the room first, then? She approached the door she had so fearlessly entered. But Oscar, blocking the door like a gatekeeper, did not move aside.
“M-my, my clothes…”
The words came out in a foolish stutter. From the darkness, he sneered at her.
“Why? Planning to change into a new outfit?”
Sneering mockingly, Oscar moved slowly. He took off the gown he was wearing, tossed it carelessly onto a sofa, and leaned against the windowsill, putting a cigarette to his lips. The flare of the tip was accompanied by a pungent smell.
“Wash up, and come out wearing that.”
Seo-ah looked at Oscar's gown in her hand.
The word he used… it must have meant courtesan.
“……”
Seo-ah raised her eyes again to meet her own reflection. She stared into her own black, empty eyes, then slowly set the gown down. She began to unbutton her upper garment from the top, but her hands kept trembling.
She clenched and unclenched her fists. She tried to unbutton it again, but her hands still shook.
“Why are you acting like this?”
This time, she rubbed her fingertips against her other palm, then shook out her wrist. Still, she couldn't undo the buttons.
Her fingers slipped again and again.
Her reason for undressing, what would happen, what she would have to endure—even the purpose of her actions—all grew faint and distant.
“…Ah.”
A warm voice flowed over her.
“…On-ah.”
It called her name tenderly.
Seo-ah, who had been lost in a daze, having forgotten even her purpose, lifted her eyes. And where her gaze landed, she saw a beautifully dressed young woman.
“……”
A pale yellow upper garment, a light blue skirt like the shallow sea on a clear day, a treasured amber pendant, and reddish traditional shoes.
“Lift your head.”
At the gentle voice, the beautifully dressed woman carefully lifted her head and smiled. Behind her, a blue sea sparkling in the clear sunlight stretched out. The shadow of a gull passed overhead, its cawing cry, the sound of crashing waves, and the wind tickling her face.
“Yes. I told you to walk with your head held high like that.”
It was the day after her coming-of-age ceremony. Women who had found a match would put their hair up in a pin from the day of their ceremony, but she still wore her hair in a braid below her ears.
But she was happy.
“You are lovely, …On-ah.”
Her real name, so precious she had only ever written it down. It was the first day she had been called by it.
Seo-ah stared at the one calling her.
The person in the fine white ramie clothes. The person whom the blue sea suited so well.
Seeing her grandfather, the purpose that had grown so distant returned.
The trembling in her fingertips gradually subsided.
Seo-ah looked at the woman standing against the backdrop of the blue sea. She had treasured her name, holding it quietly within her.
Yes… Yes. I’m glad I left you behind.
With hands neither slow nor fast, Seo-ah began to undress.
She carefully removed the amber pendant and took off the pale yellow upper garment. She took off the light blue skirt and the traditional shoes she was wearing.
When she lifted her eyes again, the woman who had been smiling shyly against the backdrop of the blue sea was gone.
Below her bony neck, shoulders, and modestly full breasts, the red hair ribbon dangled. Seo-ah carefully raised a hand and touched the end of the ribbon. Having been barely hanging on, it came undone powerlessly.
She smoothed the crumpled ribbon with her palm, flattening its creases. She stroked it again and again, as if smoothing away the days she had once thought arduous, but which now, in retrospect, held a hidden happiness. Then she folded the ribbon neatly, placed it on top of her folded clothes, and turned around.
Before lingering attachment could bring hesitation.
Before hesitation could summon fear and finally swallow her whole.
Oscar, perched askew on the windowsill, put a cigarette to his lips—he'd lost count of how many it had been.
“If you keep smoking at this rate, you'll ruin your health.”
He had frowned at the words, unsure if they were a worry or a curse.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
Barbara had only taken the ashtray, offering no reply. After that one time, she never said anything like it again.
Oscar lit the cigarette.
If his health wore away just as the cigarette did, his mother would be pleased.
Because everything that was Reinhardt would become hers.