Summer Festival (9)
The emptiness that always followed sex had become a familiar feeling long ago, but today it felt a little different. Just holding Haeun, who had passed out in my arms, filled a surprising amount of that void. I didn’t feel the urge to take pictures or torment her any further. As for the reason… there didn’t seem to be any need to overthink it.
“…”
The things I called my tastes or sexual preferences had always been nothing more than ways to fill that emptiness. Recording our encounters afterward. Occasionally searching for Hinami when I was bored. Dragging Haeun outside to enjoy the stares of strangers. Even, going back further, the way I used to deliberately throw dangerous inside pitches on the mound and make that sour expression. All of it came from the same root.
At my core, I’m someone who craves attention, a person who finds joy in being better than others. If I hadn’t been that type, I never would have shone even for a moment during my baseball career. The reason I swore off women during rehab after my injury was because I wanted to shine again. Everything I did to Haeun was simply me making her pay the price for the light I had lost.
Looking back now, I feel like I took it out on the wrong person… but whatever. In the end, meeting Hinami through Haeun and then claiming Hinami had Seo Jia throwing a fit. So in a way, it all worked out. Even if it gave me plenty of headaches.
“You asleep?”
“…”
I tossed the words out without thinking as I watched Haeun sleeping soundly in my arms. Talking to people usually required weighing every single word, which was exhausting. But with someone who was out cold, there was no need for that. It felt incredibly comfortable.
…Revenge, whatever. Maybe I should just stop worrying about catching weaknesses and all that. With this much leverage already secured, did I really need to keep pushing? She was already terrified of me. Sure, her body was exactly my type, but it wasn’t like she turned me on more than Haeun. If I ever got bored, I could always roll around with Hinami or dress her up in different outfits like the ones she wore at today’s event.
Was it really necessary to keep walking this dangerous tightrope?
I wasn’t sure anymore. I hadn’t even been thinking like this before falling asleep.
“…Sleep well.”
I gave Haeun, who was breathing softly without quite snoring, my arm as a pillow and reached for the phone I’d left by the bedside with my free hand. Out of habit, I opened the community forums.
The Sophia Minor Gallery. It was basically a fan page for Haeun, but there weren’t many people who actually seemed like fans. It used to be a ghost town where maybe one or two posts appeared per day, but starting yesterday, the number of posts had skyrocketed. Even so, it barely filled one page. Still, considering Haeun’s level of recognition, that was pretty remarkable.
They had probably seen the busty woman walking around the gaming event, figured out who she was, and flowed into this gallery. Surprisingly, when I read through the posts one by one, there was almost no hate. Most of it was praise.
There was one post asking if she was Seo Jia’s older sister, but the evidence was weak and no one seemed particularly interested. As for the posts claiming the guy with her at the event must be her boyfriend, half the replies said “Of course she has a boyfriend,” while the other half insisted he was her manager. Even those weren’t the majority. Most people were asking why she hadn’t shown her face from the beginning.
Of course, there were one or two idiots calling her ugly, but they got called blind and brutally ratioed. Someone even posted that they had assumed the gallery owner would be ugly, paid for membership because she was insanely pretty, then regretted it when there wasn’t much content.
Oh, how did I know what a gallery owner was? I used to be one for our team’s gallery for a short time back in the day. After following the coach’s orders and gently planting a fastball in an opposing batter’s head, I checked the gallery out of curiosity to see what kind of abuse I’d get. Instead, I was getting praised. It was absurd, but the memory made me smile.
While I was lost in that strange nostalgia…
“…Juhyuk.”
“Yeah? What? Weren’t you sleeping?”
“The light’s too bright… turn off your phone….”
“Ah, sorry… Hey. Why are you taking it?”
“Mmm….”
The gallery owner who had been making my arm go numb shifted, then whined in a slightly petulant voice as she snatched my phone away. With half-lidded eyes, she scanned the screen I had been looking at.
“What the hell. You put me to sleep and then looked at this stuff?”
“…I was thinking of making some money if there were any posts crossing the line.”
“Bullshit. You were just giggling at them, weren’t you?”
She saw right through me, snorted, and quickly handed the phone back. Then she burrowed into my chest, rubbing her face against it as she murmured.
“…Should I upload a selfie or something? These people seem really horny.”
“Hey.”
“What? Not a dirty one. Just like a verification shot.”
“Upload it properly later. You just washed up.”
“What? Are you saying I look ugly without makeup?”
“Your face is still super red, you know?”
“…That’s because we just did dirty stuff.”
She grumbled at my teasing and pulled away a little, but soon wriggled back, settling onto my arm again and staring straight at my face.
“Anyway. I have no intention of hiding the fact that I live with you, Juhyuk. Even if these people talk nonsense about you and me… I don’t really care. …Besides, it’s not exactly wrong.”
“How do you know what they’ll say later to be talking like that?”
“…No matter what they say, it won’t be worse than what you actually did, right?”
“Well… yeah. Mm.”
I couldn’t refute her teasing words as she smiled and grumbled. I just nodded awkwardly and accepted it. Honestly, I had nothing to say.
Most of the comments were from people whose mental age had dropped to the same level as hers—stuff like “I want to suck on those tits” or “I want her to choke me with her thighs.” The things I had said to her while we were having sex earlier were far worse than anything they posted. If I wrote down our conversation about onaholes and dick sleeves exactly as it happened, it would get deleted immediately.
Thinking about it that way made the sex we had just enjoyed feel even more special. It meant it had been so vulgar that I couldn’t even say it anonymously.
“You fucking perverted trash. …How are you worse than the people posting at dawn?”
“You’re not exactly in a position to say that to me.”
“I only do this because it’s you. …You’re the same with Hinami and with Yeen. You’re a total cumrag. Can you really use your dick that freely?”
“I’ve never used it on your sister.”
“…Where the hell did you sell your conscience?”
“I still have it, perfectly intact.”
“Wow, seriously. You…”
But I couldn’t just nod openly at Haeun’s criticism. If I said “Yeah, that’s right,” it would sound like I really had dark intentions toward Seo Jia. Of course, it wasn’t completely untrue… but if I was being truly honest, it was only because her very existence was dangerous to me. I had no reason to actually like that annoying, rude woman.
…Unless she changed her attitude like Haeun had.
“Anyway, stop talking nonsense. I’m turning off the phone, so sleep deeply. We have to go out again tomorrow.”
“…Okay. I’ll sleep better if you stop looking at your phone too.”
…When there was a woman who treated me this specially, there was no reason to cling to one who hated me. Up until now, it had been unavoidable because she was trying to kill me. But now… there was no need to go that far. Not unless she tried something against me first.
The emptiness that always came after an event had been familiar to me since childhood, but today it felt different. I hadn’t even done any filming or events, yet I felt insanely tired and hollow. I didn’t want to think about the reason. After all, from start to finish, it was all his fault.
“Huu…”
I ignored the loud thumping noise coming from the floor below and pulled the blanket over my head. In the pitch-black darkness, I turned on the light, searched for my name, and let out a deep sigh at the mixture of flowery praise and vicious slander. Was there nothing accurate about me?
I wasn’t the pure, bright, shining ideal idol that fans wanted, nor was I the filthy, vulgar, scheming bitch that antis claimed. Even the trash can where I used to dump these stifling emotions had become a place I could no longer use freely.
No matter what I tweeted from my secret account, Kang Juhyuk would see everything. Knowing that, I couldn’t write anything comfortably.
I hate this. It’s annoying.
Of course I couldn’t express those negative feelings. Lonely. Empty. I couldn’t even reveal my true feelings.
I turned off the light and sank back into the pitch-black darkness. The noise from downstairs, which had quieted for a moment, gradually grew louder until it felt like someone had pressed speakers directly against my ears. I reflexively covered my ears and curled up, but instead of disappearing, the hallucination dug deeper into me, tickling my eardrums obscenely.
The hallucination cursed me, tore me apart, then acted out the role of the older sister trying to please Kang Juhyuk. It made me picture him listening to those stories, then imagine him further trampling my dignity. On the pitch-black canvas of my mind, it freely painted the lewd acts that would happen downstairs.
“…”
No matter how much I shook my head or stirred my thoughts, there was only one way to erase the imagination that refused to fade. I had to turn the light back on inside the dark blanket, even if it hurt my eyes.
With stinging, half-lidded eyes, I scrolled through the fictions mixing insults and praise about me with no emotion. Only when my eyelids grew so heavy they could barely stay open did I realize the noise I had been hearing had disappeared at some point. Only then could I slip into sleep.
But even after falling into a deep slumber, the sticky depression and emptiness did not disappear at all.
…And from downstairs, not a single sound could be heard.