Cleanup (3)
I gripped the phone in my hand even tighter. Swallowing hard, I turned the words over in my mind again, making sure I’d heard him correctly.
“Juhyuk… what the hell are you talking about…”
“Hold on. …Never mind. You go upstairs first.”
“…Okay.”
I heard my sister’s startled voice—clearly hearing this from Kang Juhyuk for the first time—followed by her retreating footsteps. For a split second I wondered if he was bluffing. I’d erased every trace I could that night, but maybe something still felt off to him. Still, no matter how I thought about it, this wasn’t the kind of thing you could say with just a hunch. After all, they were the tenants. I was the landlord. The fact that he would say something like this when he could be kicked out at any moment meant one thing.
He had proof. One hundred percent.
“…How did you find out?”
“I installed a CCTV camera in case a burglar broke in. …Something similar got caught on it.”
“…”
Yeah. Logically, getting caught on a security camera made the most sense. …Though I seriously doubted he’d actually installed it to catch thieves.
If it had really been recorded, it was nothing good for me. One more weakness in his hands.
“No matter how much of a landlord you are, sneaking into someone else’s place is going way too far, don’t you think?”
Every single word out of his mouth was technically correct, and that made it all the more disgusting. He was the one who had secretly broken into the house I had rented to my sister in the first place. Now he was acting like he owned the place. It pissed me off.
“…I’m the landlord. Isn’t it okay for me to do that?”
“…Breaking in is one thing, but why the hell did you touch someone else’s computer? And how did you even crack the password?”
“That’s… because you set your password with terrible security.”
…Even as I said it, I knew it was a lame excuse. But.
“Don’t you think you’re being too harsh?”
“The harsh one is you—setting your girlfriend’s birthday as the password because you supposedly love her so much, then dragging another woman into the house.”
“…”
The truth was, I no longer had any reason to hold back with this man. …I did owe him one favor. But that was separate.
“If you love and cherish her that much, why do you even record videos like that? …If you want to touch her, you can do it anytime. You don’t even need to… masturbate, right? Not someone like you.”
“I told you multiple times that it’s your friend’s preference.”
“Fine, let’s say that’s true for her. What about my sister? You really expect me to believe she has the same taste?”
“…Why are you suddenly acting so bold? Shouldn’t you start by apologizing for going through someone else’s computer without permission?”
“Why should I?”
“…”
Anyway… there was no way he could ever abandon my sister and Hinami, even if he died and came back to life.
“…You barged into someone else’s house, got the sister who rented you the room drunk, then raped her. You even seduced my perfectly normal friend and fucked her so loud the entire upper floor could hear. Why the hell should I apologize to someone like you?”
“…”
“I’m genuinely grateful for what you did earlier, but I have no intention of apologizing for this. …In the first place, you’re the one who’s sick for keeping photos and videos of yourself doing that kind of thing with an idol.”
“…If you keep talking like that, have you thought about how I might respond?”
“I don’t know… I don’t think you’ll do anything. …Because you like my sister and Hinami, don’t you, Kang Juhyuk?”
“…”
No matter how much he mocked me, I would never expose the secret between the three of them. And no matter how much I provoked him, he would never willingly spread this insane relationship himself.
“If this relationship gets exposed, wouldn’t you be the one in the most trouble? …You wouldn’t be able to see the two women you love so much anymore.”
“Hey.”
“Why are you getting angry? You’ve threatened me with that exact thing multiple times, haven’t you? You told me to shut my mouth if I didn’t want a scandal to break out. …I don’t want that either. No matter what, she’s family. No matter what, she’s my friend.”
“…”
Just as I didn’t want my sister and my friend to be socially destroyed, he clearly didn’t want to see Seo Haeun and Hinami become completely broken. The fact that this usually smooth-talking man had clamped his mouth shut was proof enough. I could tell.
“Knowing that getting caught would be a huge problem, you still enjoy filming it? …What kind of perverted kink is that?”
From head to toe, I scraped at his pride until the veins on the back of his thick hand bulged. …Not like he was actually going to hit me or force himself on me.
“If you like it that much, do you want to film me too? I’m kind of an idol myself. Here, I’ll pose for you. Go ahead and take some pictures. …What, is it not enough exposure for your taste?”
The situation was completely different from before, when I had briefly felt fear toward him. He was now a man with far too much to lose. The moment he went back upstairs, two women who loved him would be waiting. A blessed man.
Compared to him, I… I was just worried that my friend and sister might be driven to extremes. I myself didn’t have much to lose anymore. …Honestly, even if I had to quit being an idol now, it wouldn’t matter that much.
“…Stop glaring at me with those scary eyes. I wasn’t joking earlier—I really almost got raped.”
“…I’m not like that bastard.”
“I don’t know about that. But when you first met my sister, you got her completely drunk before you did it, didn’t you? The smell of alcohol was so strong.”
“…”
“Honestly, I thought it was really weird back then. I’d never seen my sister bring a man home before. …Just asking out of curiosity, but you didn’t drug her, did you—”
“Can you shut the fuck up?”
Even if he couldn’t hold back his rage and tried to rape me like that manager had, it really wouldn’t matter.
“…Anyway, whether you go upstairs and have s… sex or whatever, I won’t care anymore. …I’m just saying, stop doing things that could get you caught. It was dangerous this time, wasn’t it? The agency director is probably already suspicious.”
“…I know.”
“If you know, then why don’t you delete everything you’ve recorded so far? The moment those get leaked…”
…If it ever came to that, no matter how stubborn this man was, he wouldn’t be able to stay in my house anymore. He wouldn’t be able to see my sister or Hinami again either. The risk of a scandal breaking out could be handled the same way as with the manager—just keep his mouth shut and throw him in jail. For me, it would just be one more excuse to finally breathe. It wouldn’t be a loss at all.
The moment I tried to put a period on this fight where I absolutely could not lose—
“…Don’t you have any secrets you’re hiding?”
“…Excuse me?”
“I’m asking if you’re really that upright and clean. …Can you unlock your phone in front of me?”
“Ah, wait—”
…He snatched the phone I had been holding absentmindedly. Unlike the vulgar and obscene things on his phone right in front of me, mine didn’t have anything like that. But there was still a private bamboo forest that would cause serious problems if it ever became public.
“…What are you doing right now?”
“I’m doing exactly what you did when you sneaked into my room.”
…I had nothing to fear from being found out. An account with no connection to me whatsoever. I had blocked follows, and posts were set to followers-only. It was just a space where I vented my stress where no one could see.
“Give it back.”
“If you didn’t do anything that would cause a huge problem if it got out, you should be able to show me, right?”
“Give it— ah. Wait…!”
That filthy trash bin—
…He turned on the screen and held it out to me. He unlocked it far more easily than I had cracked his password—hundreds of times more easily. He simply used my face to bypass the lock.
“Kang Juhyuk, are you actually insane…?”
“…Less insane than you.”
I clung to him as he stretched his arm out and started scrolling through my phone, desperately trying to get it back. But even though I was tall for a woman, I couldn’t reach his height. I tried kicking at his shins, hoping he’d bend his knees, but the size difference only made my foot hurt more. I seriously considered kneeing him in the groin, but if I did that, the moment he lost his mind I’d probably get beaten for real, so I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Ignoring me completely, he tilted his head back and casually went through my phone. Then—
“Hey… you even trash-talk your own fans. You’ve done plenty of things you can’t show people.”
“…”
…He had found my tweets. Reading them with an amused expression, he looked down at me and smiled in a way that made my skin crawl.
“You act like such a saint, but you’re no different from me.”
“Still not on the same level as you.”
“Earlier you called me the same kind of bastard as that manager. …Does it piss you off when you hear the same thing about yourself?”
“…Isn’t that obvious?”
It was incredibly annoying that he was equating me with a rapist and a quasi-rapist over some simple badmouthing. …What the hell was so important about those dirty photos? It’s not like I was telling him not to have sex with them. If he just didn’t leave any records, it would be so much safer. Why take on that kind of risk…
“…Hey.”
“Just give it back already.”
“Why do you write shit like this?”
“What?”
“I’m asking why you write it. …You know that if fans find out you’re badmouthing them, you’re fucked, right?”
“There’s no way I’ll get caught. Not me.”
“But I caught you.”
“You’re not my fan.”
“Then let’s say I’m a fan from now on. Why did you write this? It hurts the fans who see it.”
“…”
…Maybe I had wanted to get caught. Even though I could have just screamed it all out inside a soundproof booth. The reason I had taken the risk and left records on the internet was—
“Because the possibility of getting caught makes it feel that much better.”
“…”
“It’s the same for me and Hinami. Haeun’s a little different, though.”
…Because I had learned the thrill that could only be felt when there was a chance of getting caught. After I had dug through that part-timer’s tweets and witnessed it in real time. Because of that photo.
“…No matter how much you argue with me, your friend is obviously going to secretly record anyway. So I can’t do what you want.”
“…”
“You know why she does it, don’t you? …You’re both idols, after all.”
He stopped standing on his tiptoes, slowly pushed me away, then took out his own phone and followed my account. He casually tapped on my phone to accept the follow request, then handed it back to me. Leaning down to meet my eyes, he said,
“…If you want to unfollow, go ahead. But if you do, you won’t be able to see what I post on my account either.”
“What are you trying to do…”
“I’m going to move the videos to the one place you swore would never get discovered. …Wouldn’t this be safer than my computer that you cracked open in seconds?”
He took my own words, twisted them however he wanted, and used them to threaten me.
“…Keep badmouthing your fans like you always do. If you suddenly stop posting anything, I’ll unfollow you first.”
“…”
His creepy, sly smile sent a chill down my spine. …I could roughly guess what kind of feeling that smile came from. It made me sick.
Because recently, I had probably worn a very similar smile myself.