The Beginning of Power

Every morning at seven, I woke to the same damp, moldy stench of my studio apartment. The routine was brutally ordinary. No—ordinary didn't even begin to cover it. It was wretched.

Behind the modest title of assistant manager at some nobody of a mid-sized company, my reality was swallowing my boss's lectures through a haze of his sour breath, then wrapping up the day with a convenience-store lunchbox, soggy fried scraps, and a bottle of soju as my only comfort. No popularity. No dreams. Just leftover human garbage, through and through.

Then one day, a college friend who actually had his life together called me out of nowhere.

"Hey, I need you to fill in on a blind date—urgent. The girl's seriously high-class, but I just can't make it. You've got a suit, right? Dress properly and get out there."

On any other day I would have refused. But that afternoon, for reasons I couldn't name, a flicker of expectation got the better of me. I pulled out the suit I'd been saving, even ironed it, and headed to the meeting place.

The moment I opened the café door, a pressure hit me so hard it felt like my heart had stopped.

Sitting there was a beauty so overwhelming I had never encountered anything like her in my entire life. Even the café's ordinary lighting seemed to gather over her head like a private spotlight.

The first thing that caught my eye was her skin—flawless, luminous, like freshly strained milk refined into white jade. Not a single blemish marked that smooth complexion, which caught the light and gave off a faint, pearlescent sheen. Over it spilled hair as dark and sleek as a midnight ocean, winding softly along the line of her shoulders like the finest silk.

Her features were extravagance taken to its limit. A high, sculpted bridge of the nose set against deep, smoldering eyes, and proud rose-red lips pressed shut with such precision that she looked like a doll carved by a master's hand. The faint upward slash of her eye corners in particular threw off a cold, untouchable arrogance, an aura that dared no one to approach.

But what truly overwhelmed me was the carnal silhouette of her body. A deep-blue silk dress clung to her, tracing the full curve of her breasts to a dangerous degree, and the waist beneath it had been carved down to a slimness that barely seemed real. The legs she had crossed just past the edge of her chair were taut with effortless muscle, amplifying every feminine line she possessed.

The air around her table already belonged to another world. Men at the surrounding seats pretended to stay in their conversations, but their eyes, as if by some prior agreement, kept flicking toward her on instinct. One man froze mid-sip of his coffee. Another turned his head and simply stared, emptied of thought. There were even men sitting with their girlfriends who still dragged their gazes, undisguised, down the length of her body. The café was thick with it.

She toyed with her smartphone, her expression arrogant, as if those stares were familiar—or simply her due. Facing that lofty posture, I felt in my bones how shabby the suit I'd worn truly was, how insignificant my entire existence was, and I swallowed a dry lump in my throat. She was the kind of presence that dominated every molecule of air around her just by sitting there.

"Hello... I'm filling in for my friend..."

I swallowed hard and sat down across ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠from her.

Her name was Seo-yun. The instant she saw me, disappointment flooded her eyes—there and gone in a single second—but I clung on with everything I had.

"Hello... Seo-yun. I actually really enjoy working out. I'm an office worker now, but I have some pretty concrete plans to start a business later..."

I laid out visions I didn't even possess, groveling in my effort to win her over. Drunk on the scent of her perfume, a desire to connect myself to this perfect woman by any means necessary surged all the way to the top of my skull. I dredged up every joke I knew to paper over my wretched reality, ordered the expensive items I never touched, and strained to please her.

But a beauty's standards were high, and her instincts were colder still. The more I talked, the stranger the smirk that hooked the corner of her mouth.

"What was your name again? Forget it. I'll be honest with you."

Seo-yun gathered up a designer bag that had to have cost well over six thousand dollars and rose from her seat. She looked me up and down once, then drove the spike home with a gaze as cold as if she were inspecting trash left on the roadside.

"I was planning to at least sit through a cup of tea, but... this simply isn't going to work. Look at yourself in a mirror sometime. Spending my time with someone like you? That's not my league. Tell your friend for me—from now on, please match the class. This is just... embarrassingly low."

She walked out of the café without a shred of hesitation. The click of her high heels sounded like it was grinding my pride into the floor. I could feel the eyes of everyone ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠around me, and my face burned. The sincere feelings of an ordinary man with nothing to his name were, to an upper-class beauty like her, nothing but an unpleasant noise.

Chest full of miserable defeat, I trudged back through rain-slicked streets to my studio apartment.

"Fuck... so if you've got no money and no background, you don't even get treated like a person in this world."

The afterimage of that wretched rejection clung harder than I'd expected. Even on the subway home, even as I pushed open the worn front door, Seo-yun's contemptuous eyes stayed burned into my retinas, refusing to fade. That look that had raked over me like I was an insect. That icy voice telling me to look in a mirror.

I didn't even turn on the lights. I flung my suit jacket onto the floor. When I tore the tie loose, the rage and humiliation I'd been holding down gathered into a hot pressure low in my gut. I couldn't tell if it was anger or a twisted lust aimed at that overwhelming beauty—whatever it was, it climbed all the way to the top of my head.

"Fuck... am I that much of a joke to you? How great do you think you are?"

I grabbed the smartphone lying by the head of the bed. The moment I opened a familiar adult site, a flood of explicit videos poured out. On any other night I would have picked one at random, but not tonight. I chose a video with a flashy-looking actress and threw it to full screen.

Over the woman's face on the screen, the face of the woman who had just laughed at me superimposed itself. That neatly swept hair. Those arrogant eyes. Those lips that had been painted with expensive lipstick. I yanked my pants down and wrapped my hand around my cock.

"I'll make you get on your knees and beg in front of me... I'll make you cry with those stuck-up lips wrapped around my cock..."

I pictured Seo-yun forced down onto the bed in my studio apartment and worked my hand faster. Misery became a catalyst for pleasure and set my whole body on fire.

"Look in a mirror? Beneath your level? Ha... you fucking bitch."

I thought of her cold eyes and shook myself harder, faster. Heat I couldn't name as rage or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠pleasure punched up from my gut and spread through me. When I shut my eyes, the Seo-yun of my fantasy was pinned to my bed in that same proud posture from minutes ago.

I imagined shoving my hand into the chest of that expensive silk dress and ripping it apart in one motion. Riiip—with that sharp tearing sound, her pale, full breasts spilled into view, trembling with shame inside my head. I crushed those springy handfuls of flesh in my grip and wound her neat black hair around my fingers, yanking her head back hard.

"Still not my league? Huh? This fancy body of yours isn't so special either, you filthy whore."

The Seo-yun in my head looked up at me with eyes no longer full of contempt, but a mix of terror and pleasure. I pinned her slim waist under my leg and used my other hand to pry her lips open. The moment I pictured driving my cock—swollen to the point of bursting—into that arrogant mouth still painted with luxury lipstick, my hand moved faster than I could control.

Misery was the finest aphrodisiac there was. Every time the memory of her looking down on me surfaced, my breathing grew rougher, filthier. I clenched the bedsheet in my fist and panted like an animal, winding up for the last explosion.

"You said you didn't even want to look at my face, right? Then take a good look at this. Watch how I ruin that pretty face of yours."

When I finally hit the edge, I seized her hair in my fantasy and poured every ounce of my shame and hatred straight onto that proud face.

"AAAAGH—TAKE IT, YOU FUCKING BITCH!!!"

A hot, dense flood splattered without mercy across her dark eyebrows, the high bridge of her nose, her parted lips. Watching that white brand slide filthy down her white-jade skin, I shuddered through my whole body as if in a seizure.

"Hah... hah... fuck... Seo-yun... I want to kill you. I really do..."

In the room after the aftershocks of orgasm, only ragged breathing and a sour smell remained. I wadded up the wet tissues, tossed them aside, and sprawled on my back staring at the ceiling. The fierce sense of conquest from a moment ago was gone without a trace, and the fact that I had returned to being leftover garbage under a mold-stained ceiling shoved me even deeper into the dark.

"Hah... hah... fucking bitch... this is such bullshit..."

What remained in the space the afterglow left behind was only emptiness, and a misery deeper than before. I lay on the bed still naked, fiddling with my phone. I scrolled blankly through social media, flipping past meaningless community posts, killing time with nothing to do.

That was when it happened—while my fingertip was swiping mindlessly across the screen.

The display suddenly crackled, flared with a blue light, and a bizarre popup I had never seen before appeared.

"The hell is this? Spam?"

I tried to hit the close button, but the phone began operating on its own, indifferent to my will. A grotesque, wavering purple icon formed dead-center on the screen. Beneath it, in vivid purple lettering, was written:

Bewitched by that purple light pulsing like a heartbeat, I found my finger moving to the icon before I knew what I was doing.

A moment after I tapped it, the screen flickered violet, and then bizarre strings of text began to unspool as if the phone had been hacked. It didn't look like a domestic app—there wasn't a single character of Korean anywhere. The screen filled with nothing but English phrases in a sharp, cutting font.

I couldn't be bothered to read the English, let alone run it through a translator. I figured it was some cheap ad-app or a joke of a game and swiped through the screens half-heartedly. The text on those screens read as follows:

"The hell is it even saying... some ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kind of superpower? Pretty dedicated for a prank."

I snorted and tossed the phone aside. The wound from the woman on that blind date ran too deep for a cheap little app like this to make me feel any better. Still naked, I pulled the damp blanket all the way over my head.

The reality that I would have to clock in at that hell of a company again tomorrow settled over me like a bad dream.

But I didn't know. I didn't know that the purple icon on the phone I'd thrown aside was pulsing in the dark like a heartbeat, ominous and alive. And I didn't know that the moment I opened my eyes tomorrow morning, my wretched reality would come to a permanent end.