A Damp Weekend Lunch
I don’t want to see anyone anymore. I turn off the computer, straighten the messy blankets, and erase every trace of myself. I slip out of the apartment as if nothing had happened. I don’t feel like going straight home, so I head down to the first floor without thinking. Too tired to bother hiding my face, I go out without a hat or mask, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and sweatpants. I trudge along until the raindrops hit my forehead and I finally realize I’ve stepped outside.
“…”
Should I go back for an umbrella? And if I do, where would I even go? The fact that I have no destination at all is so absurd that my legs give out. I drop to my knees and crouch there, letting the sound of water soaking into my hair fill my thoughts.
“Ha…”
…I can’t even laugh or cry. How did my friends, my colleagues, all end up like this? Is a man really that good? Good enough to make every effort they’ve made until now feel worthless?
I tilt my drenched head and let the water drip, drip down. Slowly, I stand up in my soaked T-shirt and start walking along the road. Anywhere is fine, as long as it’s out of the rain. Anywhere but home.
“Welco…me…”
The part-timer at the nearest convenience store greets me, clearly startled by my bedraggled, mouse-like appearance. Or maybe his eyes are stuck on the bra showing through my wet T-shirt.
“…Do you have a towel?”
“……Ah, yes. Over there…”
I shoot him a cold look, grab a towel, pay, and step outside to dry my hair. I wring the water from my T-shirt too, then toss the towel into the trash before going back inside.
“…”
The same guy is still staring at me like a creep. I let out a loud sigh, grab an armful of sweets from the display, pile them on the counter, and add an umbrella at the last second before dumping everything on the part-timer.
“Ring these up.”
“…Ah, yes. By the way, are you Seo Jia…?”
“I’m not Seo Jia.”
“Ah… okay.”
I ignore the part-timer who was probably hoping for an autograph, take the bag and umbrella in each hand, and wander the streets again. Eventually I realize I don’t even know the layout around my own house and drag myself home with my shoulders slumped.
“…”
The apartment has the exact same layout as the one downstairs. The same kind of place. Those two probably tangled together right here in the entrance. In the bedroom, the three of them must have been swapping tongues. In the soundproof booth, they probably filmed that kind of video. Even in the bathroom I’m standing in now, they must have explored each other’s naked bodies.
“…Tastes good.”
I’m still in my soaked, pathetic state, not even bothering to take off the wet T-shirt. I plop down on the living-room floor, leaving wet patches everywhere, and shove the chocolate I just bought into my mouth.
…How many years has it been since I ate this? I’ve had calorie-dense food before, but never anything this loaded with sugar.
“Ha… haha…”
The sweetness is so intense it makes my head throb. I take another bite of chocolate and wash it down with the cola I bought.
…It’s completely different from the beer I only drank on rare occasions. Sweet, refreshing. These things cost less than a few thousand won, yet dopamine is flooding my brain.
…Maybe everyone’s gone crazy because they can’t enjoy stuff like this. Hinami was restricted from these things too. That’s why she secretly reached for alcohol and cigarettes. Once those weren’t enough, she probably clung to men just like the others.
If I hadn’t stopped her from eating sweets, maybe she would’ve just gotten a little chubby instead. It’s too late to know now. What’s done is done, and there’s no turning back. All I can do is keep my mouth shut so those bombs explode as late as possible.
“…”
I shove the leftover chocolate and soda into the fridge, wash the melted chocolate off my hands at the sink, then strip off the wet T-shirt, sweatpants, and underwear. Standing in front of the showerhead just like I did in the rain earlier, I let the cold water hit me.
“…How many years left on the contract again.”
Probably a little over three years. It’s not short, but it’s shorter than the time I’ve already spent. I wonder if I can get through it without any incidents. I don’t know. Being careful won’t change anything. While I’m doing these pointless calculations, the cold water gradually turns warm. But the warmth makes my head heat up again, so I switch it back to cold.
My whole body is shivering and I can barely breathe, but it’s just enough to suppress the sweet pleasure I felt earlier.
“Haa, haa…”
I towel off my freezing hair and body, force myself into pajamas with trembling limbs, and dry my hair with the cold setting on the dryer. Even this small, annoying task feels less painful than the trainee days when I saw the number four on the scale despite being over 170 centimeters tall.
Not just me—everyone probably suffered. Especially Hinami. That’s why I’m so attached to her. I know how hard she worked. She came to a foreign country where she couldn’t even speak the language properly, stuck to that brutal training and diet, collapsed every single day, yet still smiled before bed because she wanted to succeed now that she’d come this far.
I don’t know how she sees me, but to me, Hinami was the very image of the idol I admired growing up. Not someone who was artificially polished to perfection like me, but someone who struggled, grew little by little, and made even her flaws shine.
“…Stupid girl.”
That girl, my friend who was born only a month earlier than me, had somehow turned pitch black. She secretly drank, started breaking her diet, and when real cigarettes scared her she switched to an e-cigarette instead. Then she met a man and did something that vulgar. At this rate she’ll probably get a tattoo soon. It’s trendy these days. The older girls already have them, so it wouldn’t be strange.
“Haa…”
This world I live in—the entertainment industry—has become so disillusioning. Even the people I’ve seen with my own eyes are all like this, so the ones I admired as a child probably weren’t clean either. It feels like my beautiful memories are being violated, so I don’t want to think about it too deeply.
“Whatever. Now then…”
Thinking any more will only make me feel worse. I crawl under the covers with my body that has finally stopped trembling and blink a few times. Sleep won’t come, and I don’t feel like doing anything. The only thing I can do in this empty state is pick up my phone.
“…”
I turn it on, scroll through pointless news, check if our team won, then open YouTube and blankly watch videos of cats rolling around. Eventually even that gets boring, so I exit to the home screen and absentmindedly launch the game I’d been forcing myself to play.
Without any thoughts or excitement, I just wander the game world. I mine rolling stones, beat up strange monsters that attack me, talk to NPCs who call me by a name that isn’t Seo Jia, pick up every document scattered in the corners of the map and read them one by one. When there’s really nothing left to do, I climb to the top of a windmill, spread my wings, and slowly fly around.
“…Must be nice.”
Must be nice. I want to fly around without thinking too. Not something that drains stamina like an airplane—just float gently through the air.
The moment my character lands softly on the ground—
-Jia, hewing
A woman I no longer need to get close to messages me.
-Hai there
-What r u doing?
-Just resting
-Let’s mine ore together
-I already mined everything
-I haven’t so mine mine
I only meant to reply out of courtesy, but I don’t have the energy to be cold to the part-timer who’s talking to me without any hidden motives.
-Hewing hewing
For the first time since middle school, I spend the entire Sunday doing nothing—no workouts, no practice—just following whatever that girl suggests and wasting the whole day.
…Maybe it would’ve been easier if I’d lived like this all along. The thought crosses my mind.
After finishing swimming.
“Ah, Oppa. Isn’t this pretty?”
“What is it?”
“It’s from that game Unnie cosplayed last time. A new character came out. But look at these thighs…”
Hinami, wearing nothing but a T-shirt, clings to me and shoves her phone in my face while chattering innocently. She looked stressed yesterday, so it’s a relief she seems fine today. I absentmindedly pat her head and glance at the screen, where a blue-haired, busty female knight with a greatsword is wandering through some grass.
“I don’t know about the stats, but the thigh jiggle is insane. I’m definitely using this from now on.”
“That’s so you.”
“What do you mean by that, Unnie?”
“It’s perverted.”
“Oh, well, I can’t argue with that.”
Haeun, also wearing only a dress shirt, sets down her latte and crawls onto the bed. The two of them have clearly gotten closer. Sandwiched between them, the three of us stare blankly at Hinami’s phone as she swings her sword around.
“Anyway, this character is really pretty. You should try the outfit when it comes out, Unnie. I think it’ll suit you a lot.”
“Why don’t you wear it?”
“That’s a joke, right?”
“Not really. …You’ve got quite the assets too.”
“Eek, sexual harassment… no, assault?”
“You touched me earlier too. …Hey, I never said you could touch me now.”
Watching them drape their arms over each other and knead each other’s breasts makes the desire I’ve been holding back since the pool surge up again.
“…”
The moment they notice my underwear tenting, the two women swallow hard in unison, as if they’d planned it, and slowly reach toward me.
“…What are you looking at that made you hard, Oppa?”
“Who knows.”
“Say it properly. …Who are you looking at?”
Whether they’re competing or cooperating, they coordinate to pressure me.
“…I got hard looking at that character with the thick thighs. Happy?”
“Yeah, right. You pervert.”
“Don’t lie. The person who just saw us in swimsuits wouldn’t get hard from just thighs.”
“Covered-up things are sexier.”
“Hmm… is that so?”
They cut off my half-hearted excuse and stop touching me at the same time, then suddenly get up and start rummaging through the bag they brought.
“What are you doing?”
“You said covered-up is sexier.”
“Since you said covered-up is sexier, we’ll dress you up.”
…They came here with this in mind from the start. Of course they’d prepared all sorts of outfits. They pull out the exact outfit from the game Hinami just showed me.
“Ah, this is good. Unnie, doesn’t this come with that too?”
“I sent that to the dry cleaner… Ah. …I brought the white one.”
“Then, well, it’ll have to do…”
The smaller one gets plain white stockings with no pattern. The larger one gets white pants so tight they look ready to burst at the hips.
“…Should we leave the top as is? I didn’t bring a dress.”
“I don’t feel like putting everything on either.”
They leave the tops as they are—Hinami in her T-shirt, Haeun in her dress shirt.
“…”
“…Why aren’t you saying anything, Oppa?”
One has different hair color and a bob instead of twintails, but her vibe is eerily similar to the idol herself. The other has similar hair color and has her long hair neatly tied back, looking like she jumped straight out of the game.
“Just… you look like sisters.”
“Well, we are cosplaying sister characters.”
“We are sisters, though. …Jia and I are basically sisters, so Unnie and I are sisters too, right, Unnie?”
“For today only. …Starting tomorrow, we’re not.”
They climb on top of me in sync, each grabbing the waistband of my underwear as self-proclaimed sisters, and pull out what’s about to burst free.
“…Your expression doesn’t look very satisfied compared to when you’re looking at a cock, Juhyuk Oppa.”
“What’s missing?”
While giving them a blank look, I—
“Ah…”
—tap my neck twice, making them bring over the thing they definitely packed first when they were filling their bags.
“…Here.”
I place the black-and-red collar on my thigh and fasten it around each of their necks, adjusted to fit the original owners.
“…”
…At this point, accuracy and everything else is completely destroyed, so it’s not even cosplay anymore. But it doesn’t matter. After all, in an hour, none of us will be wearing anything.