Reversal (9)
She scrubbed her dirtied face raw with water.
Even so, the faint, fishy smell refused to fade.
Only after pouring out whatever it was—body wash, cleansing foam, shampoo, or conditioner—working up a lather and scrubbing away the disgusting traces could she finally escape his scent.
But the shock etched into her mind was impossible to erase.
…What the hell had she just seen?
Why hadn’t she run until she was told to get lost?
She hadn’t needed to witness Hinami having sex with a man, or Kang Juhyuk having sex with a woman.
She placed her trembling hands on the sink and lifted her head to meet her own reflection—wet, bedraggled, and pitiful.
She wasn’t ugly, but she looked wretched. Her sister stolen by a strange man, her friend stolen too. Even the will to keep trying had been taken from her. All that remained in the mirror was her appearance.
Yet even that one decent feature had been defiled by Kang Juhyuk. He had rubbed his cock—still slick from thoroughly pounding her friend’s most intimate place and coated in every kind of fluid—across her face to wipe it clean.
…No matter how hard she scrubbed, she couldn’t forget that smell. The obscene scent that made her closest friend in the world ignore her completely and focus only on thrusting her hips. The filthy scent that made the woman she despised most keep rocking her waist without sparing her a single glance. She never wanted to smell that vulgar, animalistic odor again, but she knew she would. Eventually. Even if it wasn’t him, if she ever took a man, she would end up just like Hinami.
No matter how many people adored, praised, and worshipped her, the moment she fell in “love,” she would fall just as low. All the effort she had poured into being loved by everyone would melt away as easily as vanilla ice cream in summer. The instinctive roll of hips driven by nothing but pleasure would look far more sensual than any choreography she had repeated hundreds of times in the practice room. A smile born from love alone would seem far more charming than the one she had practiced thousands of times in the mirror. The simple high after sex would feel far more thrilling than the roar of the crowd at the end of blood-soaked effort on stage.
…It was all so hollow.
If she had accepted even one of the countless men who approached her, would she have ended up the same way? There were plenty of men more handsome than Kang Juhyuk, all of them accomplished. If she had fallen for any of them, would she have acted as spoiled and coy as Hinami? The thought of herself—haughty in front of fans, striking cool expressions in music videos—now reduced to fawning beneath a man made her nauseous.
…She would rather die than become that.
“Haa.”
She inhaled the faint trace of alcohol lingering in her throat and exhaled hotly. Shaking the image of the two bodies tangled inside from her mind, she stepped outside the pension.
The night air was already cold enough to make the word “summer” feel like a lie. She rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms and wandered aimlessly around the building in the quiet forest with nowhere to run.
…If she had a license, she could have taken the car and fled. Until Kang Juhyuk drove her home, she was trapped here.
The sound of her own footsteps on the forest path should have been frightening, but the moans leaking from the pension drowned out any fear.
…How long were those two going to keep acting like animals? Maybe until tomorrow. Even after waking up. Until the moment he finally took her home.
“…”
Curiosity got the better of her. She found herself walking toward the sound without thinking. The moans grew louder. Light spilled through a gap in the curtains. Peering through the narrow opening, she saw the same obscene scene playing out again.
The broad back of the muscular man. The slender nape of the woman. He bit her ear while his hands moved busily. Every time those thick fingers worked, the woman’s entire body trembled.
The more she watched the undeniable proof of their depravity, the stranger her own heart felt—calm, almost detached. She was disgusted by her own inability to look away, even while feeling revulsion toward both love and simple pleasure.
Other than the moans, she couldn’t hear their words. The woman’s head was thrown back, mouth opening and closing, but the window swallowed the sound. Whatever trivial conversation they were having didn’t matter. They whispered to each other, climbed off the bed to search for something, then the woman returned first, bouncing onto the mattress and sitting obediently.
The man approached her, something in hand, and wrote on her cheek.
…For the first time in her life, she saw that man’s pure, genuine smile. Before she could wonder what he had written to make him grin like that, the woman turned her head to show her the characters.
Hiragana she had seen often before. Hinami…ji. Her own name.
They had written something so ordinary on each other’s cheeks and were giggling about it. It made no sense. Hinami took the marker and carefully wrote “Juhyuk-oppa” on his cheek in return. Kang Juhyuk, who had just done the most vulgar things imaginable, was now smirking over something as childish as names written on skin. Everything about them was incomprehensible.
…She would never understand until she stepped into that obscene space herself.
“…Need…?”
She caught only fragments of their conversation. Kang Juhyuk asked something; Hinami shook her head. Then they were kissing again, rubbing their cheeks together to smear the names written there. The ink should have come off with sweat, yet it refused to fade. After a long embrace and more kissing, they parted. He stroked her nape and pressed down on her shoulder. Hinami rose without hesitation, crawled between his legs as he leaned back against the pillows, and began making vulgar sounds.
“Nn… *chuup*…”
She didn’t need to hear the words to know what Hinami was doing. …She had experienced it herself. Or rather, had it done to her. The humiliation and shame she had felt still lingered in her throat. She had sworn she never wanted to go through that again and believed no one else would either. Who would enjoy it? It was a filthy hole. It was suffocating. The taste and smell were disgusting. Unlike being touched, it offered her no pleasure whatsoever.
“Mmph… *gulp*…”
Yet Hinami kept glancing up, her mouth stretched around the cock that had once coated her own tongue in that awful taste, the corners of her eyes curving as she smiled up at the man stroking her hair. She looked genuinely happy, as if she wanted this. As if kneeling before a man who wasn’t even particularly remarkable, as if having her throat forced open, as if everything about it made her happy.
“Mmph, mmph, ngh, mmph…… *pff*…mmph…”
Kang Juhyuk casually pulled out his phone and started filming her. Hinami flashed a V-sign at the camera like she was posing for fans, clearly enjoying it. …It was far more alien than the Hinami who had been moaning beneath him earlier. This had nothing to do with pleasure. No one could possibly enjoy having their throat used like that. She could understand that sex itself felt good. But why would anyone get excited about sucking cock? It was an act that only benefited the man.
“*Gulp*… mmph… *cough*… mmph… mmph…”
She couldn’t look away from Hinami’s face as she choked and still tried to take him deeper into her small mouth, sucking vulgarly. It was grotesque. The way that beautiful face twisted. The way it remained beautiful even twisted. The way even that cute face could turn lewd. Enjoying humiliation from the man she liked. Accepting domination as “happiness.” All of it was beyond her understanding.
“Mmph… ngh… *bweh*… hehe…”
After clinging to him for a long time, working her tongue, Hinami noticed his body trembling. She pulled off, wrapped her hand around his now-rigid cock, and licked the tip so the semen would spurt freely. She lapped up the fluid—disgusting in taste and smell—as if it were sweet, not caring that her expensive hair was getting soiled. It shattered what little remained of her common sense.
“*Mmm*… mmph… …hehe.”
After he finished, she kissed the cum-covered tip, then showed him the semen she had gathered on her tongue. She took the phone from Kang Juhyuk, who had been filming her vulgar display, and sent the video to someone.
…Everything about it pissed her off.
It felt like kids who had just tried cigarettes and alcohol mocking a model student, sneering, “You don’t even know about this?” Treating her like some naive child who knew nothing about love or sex… was infuriating.
…It wasn’t that she didn’t do it because she didn’t know. She didn’t do it because she shouldn’t. Because she didn’t want to. Unlike Hinami, she found the idea of anyone standing above her utterly repulsive. She had always been the one praised, worshipped, and looked up to. Why should she have to crawl beneath a man like Hinami? She rejected Kang Juhyuk because she despised him. If she told him to lie down and get hard for her… would he really push her away?
“Ha… haha…”
…Not that she would ever actually do it. But imagining how desperately he would scramble to please her if she gave him even the slightest opening, after treating her so rudely, and picturing her sister’s and Hinami’s reactions… she couldn’t help but laugh. They were all so stupid. Every single person here.