The Lost Face
The twentieth-floor corridor lay quiet, lit by only a handful of LED lights.
Sang-hyuk looked down at Lee Yu-na, whom he had seated atop a box of documents.
Yu-na’s head hung slightly, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The insides of her thighs were still slick, her skirt left in disarray. Between her parted legs her pubic hair and swollen sex were plainly visible. Her eyes were half-glazed.
“…Get a hold of yourself.”
At Sang-hyuk’s low command, Yu-na slowly lifted her face.
Focus had not fully returned, yet the eyes that met his already held something different from before—fear and awe, and a thirst that could not be cut off.
Sang-hyuk took her chin and locked gazes with her.
This time deliberately, briefly.
Come back to yourself. Please.
Yu-na’s body gave a faint spasm, then she answered in a slack voice.
“…Yes. Master.”
Sang-hyuk released her and stepped back.
“Ma… Master?”
“I’m not your master. I’m Assistant Manager Shin Sang-hyuk. From now on, behave at the company exactly as you always have. Don’t let anyone see that this happened.”
“Yes…”
Yu-na rose unsteadily and reached a hand toward him.
“Please… just a little more. Defile me a little more.”
Sh… she’s insane.
“Please… I’ve never felt pleasure like this… Until now, the men weren’t even men. Please…”
“No. We’re done. It’s too dangerous.”
Yu-na began to cry.
“Hic… Once you’ve fucked me, you hate me, don’t you? You’re throwing me away, aren’t you?”
What the hell is wrong with this woman?
Sang-hyuk began edging backward.
A look of raw craving and obsession twisted across Yu-na’s face.
“Please hold me just once more. Even if my ass is already torn to shreds from Managing Director Song’s cock, I’ll give you my precious hole too.”
In that instant—
The urge rose, fierce and sudden, to suck out and devour again whatever he had drawn through Yu-na’s mouth at the peak of her orgasm.
It shook his brain harder than any desire he had ever known.
Something inside him goaded, Drive that woman into absolute climax! Body and soul separate then—you can drink her soul!
Do it one more time?
Shin Sang-hyuk nearly surrendered.
Yet a scrap of will still remained.
He forced the hunger down.
Above all it was too dangerous. He knew the security guards made regular rounds.
One more time and discovery was certain.
“Next time. All right? That’s enough for today…”
Despair flickered across Lee Yu-na’s face.
“You’ll open me up between the legs tomorrow for sure, right?”
Irritation flared.
“Not tomorrow—next time! Go home for today.”
At the commanding tone Yu-na flinched as if shocked.
“Yes, Master.”
After that she seemed to collect herself.
She tugged her skirt roughly into place and swept the tangled hair from her face.
Strength still had not fully returned to her legs.
She walked toward the elevator, then glanced back once.
The eyes fixed on Sang-hyuk were still wet.
The doors closed; only the descending hum of the elevator remained.
Only then did Sang-hyuk exhale and lean his back against the wall.
He looked down at his palms. They were no longer the familiar small, plump hands. Long, elegant, aristocratic fingers…
Yu-na’s juices still clung to them, giving off a sharp, sour scent.
His heart hammered. Terror and rapture crashed over him together.
Only after she was gone did his mind clear again.
The situation sorted itself into order.
I… almost killed someone.
A chill ran through him.
Valentine’s voice rolled low through his skull once more.
“That woman is under hypnosis. Your fluids have been injected; domination has begun. Whether you devour her, turn her into a Succubus, or keep her as a slave is entirely your choice.”
Am I losing my mind? Hallucinations keep coming…
Sang-hyuk shook his head, shoving the voice away.
Why do these things keep happening? Body turns into someone else’s, then I start hearing voices…
Remembering the sex with Yu-na brought a swell of pride—he had taken the managing director’s lover, a top-tier beauty—yet worry flooded in right behind it.
He started down the emergency stairs on foot.
His thoughts stayed tangled all the way home.
In the taxi he checked his phone.
Twenty-seven missed calls from Yu-mi.
Even more text messages.
The last message had arrived two hours earlier.
Sang-hyuk stared at the screen a moment, then flipped the phone face-down without answering.
He came home.
A note Yu-mi had stuck up was waiting.
He tossed it into the drain and went inside.
In the shower he faced the mirror.
Seeing a self that was clearly not himself yet somehow was himself sent a fresh wave of revulsion through him.
One hundred eighty-seven centimeters. Sharp features. Deep, haunting eyes.
Compared with his old face the new one was so handsome it felt alien.
He remembered the web novels he used to enjoy.
Stories where the protagonist suddenly becomes gorgeous, women flock to him, and he revels in it…
Back then he had daydreamed the same way—status window popping open, body transformed, everything falling into his lap.
Now he understood: that only worked because it was fiction.
When it actually happened to him, not a single good feeling remained.
Happy? Bullshit.
The dominant emotion was fear.
He wondered whether this was an endless dream or whether he had simply gone mad and was living inside a hallucination.
He didn’t even like the new face.
He could see it was handsome.
But Shin Sang-hyuk had loved his original face.
It had never been good-looking, yet looking at it had felt as familiar and comforting as an old friend.
This new face triggered instant rejection.
It felt like the poor but warm biological father had died and been replaced by a rich, distant stepfather…
The body, too, was so perfect it lacked any sense of reality. He hated it.
He ached for the old soft belly, the slightly plump frame.
Only one thing he absolutely loved: the height.
He never wanted to go back to the old height.
Everything else filled him with disgust.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the saved photos.
Every single one had changed to the tall, handsome man he was now.
Not just the face—even the past is rewriting itself…
I have to go to a psychiatric hospital first thing tomorrow.
Thank god tomorrow was Saturday.
Night air drifted in through the window.
Sang-hyuk lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling.
Yu-na’s unfocused eyes rose before him.
Over them layered the withered, twisted corpses of the women from the dream—skin dry as paper, eyes sunken, mouths gaping like dead fish, beautiful blondes.
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
He covered his face with an arm and muttered low.
“Voice that keeps ringing inside my head… who the hell are you?”
No answer came.
Only the quiet room and the clear thud of his own heart.
He tried again.
“Can it be reversed?”
Still nothing.
“Just a hallucination after all.”
Sang-hyuk looked up nearby psychiatric clinics on his phone and tried to sleep.
He prayed desperately that when morning came he would wake up in his original body—except for the height.
The next morning.
The instant Sang-hyuk opened his eyes he checked the mirror.
Damn it. The madness is still going.
Still that face. One hundred eighty-seven centimeters and those sharp features.
The prayer had failed.
He went straight to the clinic he had found, no appointment.
Saturday morning; the waiting room was nearly empty.
The moment he sat across from the doctor he spoke.
“Doctor, I think I’m crazy.”
The doctor toyed with his pen.
“That can happen. In what particular way do you feel that?”
“I… used to be ugly. Height one-sixty-six, belly sticking out, ordinary face. Then a few days ago I woke up and my body was like this. Grew twenty-one centimeters, face turned into… this. Isn’t that a psychiatric symptom? Schizophrenia, body dysmorphic disorder, something?”
The doctor studied Sang-hyuk’s face for a long moment, then answered calmly.
“Patient, you don’t merely ‘look’ handsome. You actually are extremely handsome.”
Sang-hyuk’s expression froze.
“What?”
“Even to my eyes your appearance is quite refined. The subjective sense that your height increased and your face changed could be cognitive distortion from stress or sleep disturbance, but objectively your looks themselves are attractive.”
Sang-hyuk’s mouth stayed open.
The instant the doctor confirmed he was “actually handsome,” the last scrap of hope collapsed.
I’m not crazy… it’s real… it really changed.
He simply walked out of the examination room.
Outside the hospital he stood for a long time.
The doctor’s words had given him certainty.
It was not a delusion. Of course he knew schizophrenia could make a person believe they were no longer themselves or that aliens had taken over their body.
He had doubted his own sanity…
But no.
The clearest proof still sat at home: the clothes he used to wear, already torn from the transformation.
Sleeves that now ended halfway up his forearms, pants that barely reached his ankles.
Even if everyone around somehow accepted the current him as Shin Sang-hyuk…
Objects don’t lie.
After fretting he decided to buy new clothes first. Crazy or delusional, food, clothing, and shelter still had to be handled.
He headed for the department store.
The moment the saleswomen in the men’s section saw him their eyes went round. Smiles bloomed unbidden on their lips.
They latched onto him and refused to leave, treating him like a private client. Other customers might as well not have existed.
They dressed him, photographed him.
“Ah, enough! Just leave me alone to pick things myself!”
Only when Sang-hyuk finally exploded did the staff stop hovering.
Suits, casual wear, shirts…
He grabbed whatever he needed immediately and stuffed the bags.
Taller, better-built, every piece of clothing hung perfectly on him.
Even that irritated him.
Shopping bags in both hands, he reached the apartment building.
Someone was standing at the entrance.
The fiancée who had cheated on him and given him syphilis… Kim Yu-mi.