Exposure (5)
“…Sorry.”
“Do it properly.”
“I’m sorry.”
When we got home, Haeun was kneeling in front of me in the exact same posture as before. Only this time, instead of wearing an apron at the entrance, she was completely naked on the bed with nothing but her choker on. The thought of her prostrating herself crossed my mind, but the situation had been dangerous enough to warrant even that. One wrong move and another article could have gone up. Even if I didn’t mind being in the media, I had no desire to be dragged into it over something like this.
“Haa… Let’s not cause any more trouble. Alright?”
“…Yeah.”
“Well, it’s not like you did it on purpose. I can’t really say much more than that. Still, you need to be careful. There are way more people out there who want to kill someone famous than you’d think.”
Even without us, plenty of people were just looking for something to chew on. The ones who tore into Seo Jia last time—did they really do it because they hated her? The ones who hyped me up excessively—did they really do it because they liked me? They only did it because it got good reactions. Jia had a lot of fans, so bashing her once brought out a flood of backlash that they could enjoy tearing into. My fans had all disappeared, so instead of beating me up, using me as a tool to bash Jia or Hinami got far better engagement, which was why they sucked up to me.
“Come on, it’s not that bad…”
“There are a shit ton. Want me to show you?”
“…”
It was obvious the moment you stepped into any community. Whether there was some kind of quota or not, at least half the posts on any given page were people cursing someone out or trying to bury them. The only way to avoid getting flamed online wasn’t to refute them with perfect logic—it was to make your presence so dull that no one bothered reacting.
“Anyway, as long as you understand. …Don’t stream too much. It’s not like you need to do it often anyway. If you’re not going to be consistent, then don’t bother.”
“I know that too. I just turned it on because I was bored.”
In that sense, the people who used to insult Haeun had disappeared so quickly because she never had many fans to begin with. Until now, she had only ever made one-way announcements. She never interacted with anyone. So no matter how much those guys who wanted a pseudo-romance with her tried to provoke her, there was never much of an audience to begin with since she hadn’t built that kind of relationship.
Conversely, the more those kinds of fans grew, the more people would react to her. Even if she openly declared she was living with her boyfriend on her main page, a woman who looked like her reading chat messages one by one in that voice would inevitably attract those fans. There were plenty of guys who hit on married women, after all.
Of course, gaining those fans wasn’t a bad thing in itself, but the timing was terrible. Both she and I had become far too famous. People weren’t exactly welcoming toward new faces who suddenly blew up. I’d already experienced that back when I was playing baseball.
“Anyway, it’s a relief it didn’t blow up too much… Let’s be smart about this. We’ve already shown our faces way too much.”
“…Don’t you like that kind of thing, Juhyuk?”
“I do. But I… well… Never mind.”
Still, I was the kind of person who wanted that. Dragging her out into the open, putting her on a stream full of people—it hadn’t been for Seo Haeun’s sake. It had been for mine.
“Why are you stuttering? …Just say you like it.”
“…”
“You do like it. …You like sucking your master’s cock with the same mouth you use to stream, don’t you?”
It wasn’t about money or fame. It was pure desire. The sense of superiority that came from enjoying something everyone else craved all to myself. That had been the starting point all along.
“…Do you hate it when I get famous?”
“That’s not it.”
“Then… do you hate it when I get insulted?”
“…”
“Pfft… Now of all times? You used to hate me so much before. …You cursed me out every time we fucked.”
…If I went back further, it had been revenge. But that petty feeling had already burned out the first time I took her. The occasional sparks that tried to flare up again had been completely extinguished once I took her sister too. Sometimes I still felt that dark urge to expose her more to the outside world, but her sister’s friend had been satisfying enough to handle most of it. My violent desires could all be poured into her. And she didn’t find it burdensome—she liked it. So strangely enough, most of the desires I had left to pour into Haeun were no longer twisted. Even though she was once a woman I had hated so much.
“…I don’t really care if people insult me a little.”
“That’s because you’ve never been insulted before.”
“Why? Do you think I’ve never been insulted in my life?”
“You’ve been insulted less than me, at least.”
“…That’s because our master has never lived as a woman with big, pretty breasts. Just carrying these around means getting insulted by women and sexually harassed by men, you know?”
I couldn’t refuse when she took my hand and placed it on her chest. In truth, there was no need to refuse. The fact that I could no longer hate her was entirely my own doing, from start to finish.
“Even when I worked at the baseball club, I got insulted a lot. People talked behind my back saying I was a parachute hire because of my dad, and I got ostracized because they thought I kicked you out…”
“…”
“…It’s not like I wanted to work there. If my dad had actually loved me, he wouldn’t have forced me into that place. Those idiots.”
But the fact that she had become someone similar to me wasn’t because I had shaped her. Just like how I had become a cynical person because of parents I didn’t even remember. The fact that she had become the pet of a man she once hated was probably also because of her parents. If she hadn’t been the director’s daughter, I wouldn’t have gone this far either.
“Dad liked Yeeun more than me to begin with. …Though I don’t know if she liked him that much either.”
“Is that so.”
“Someone like that wouldn’t have kicked you out just because he fought with me, right? …It’s just that he thinks he’s so smart and rational, so he heard one rumor and stupidly went after you.”
I wasn’t her parent. I was Seo Haeun’s lover, her master, and someone tied to her by a twisted fate. All I knew about how she had grown up were the scattered stories I’d heard. She was the same. The only thing she knew about my past was that I had grown up under my uncle without parents.
“He was like that with me too, you know? Told me to live sincerely like a good churchgoer or whatever. …Meanwhile he got caught cheating and got divorced. Well… it was mutual cheating, though.”
“…I grew up pretty similarly too.”
“…Still, these days I don’t hate him as much.”
“Why?”
“Mom’s chest wasn’t this big. …This is Dad’s genes, I guess?”
So even the things I took for granted might not have been so obvious. After living together for months, I had never once heard her talk about her mom, so I knew we were similar in that way. But I hadn’t known that her mother hadn’t passed down those breasts.
“Her face too… Dad was handsome in his old photos. No wonder he cheated.”
“…The director is still handsome even now.”
“Pfft, trying to flatter him now?”
“I can’t exactly insult him.”
“If you were going to do that, you should’ve tried flattering him back when you were playing baseball. …Then maybe we could’ve dated normally.”
“Yeah, right, dating the director’s daughter.”
Even those words that now sounded like a joke might have been sincere once. After picking a fight and ending up ostracized at work, meeting that man again after quitting. Even with all the schemes mixed in, I hadn’t cut things off and had even brought her into my room. Maybe if I had been a little smarter back then, we could have ended up like this a little sooner. But if that had happened, our relationship would have been completely different. I would have only had her on my arm, and I would have poured all my dark desires into her alone. …She probably wouldn’t have been able to handle it.
“…Does it feel good touching the chest of that annoying bitch?”
“Yeah.”
“The one who had no manners and glared at the players like she looked down on them. The one whose chest was disgustingly big. Does it feel good fucking her?”
“…Yeah.”
“…Does it feel good climbing on top of the director’s daughter who kicked you out and crushing her until she breaks?”
“It feels good.”
“Getting your cock sucked by the lips of the girl who was just streaming earlier… is that better than what you said before?”
“…What I said before is a little better.”
“…Then I won’t stream. Only… when you tell me to turn it on sometimes.”
But now, it was bearable. …Rather, it was because we were tied together by this twisted fate. That annoying girl. The woman with the big breasts and fierce eyes. The director’s daughter who had ground up a perfectly fine player based on nothing but a rumor from a daughter she didn’t even love that much. It was fine even if she wasn’t as famous as Hinami. …If what filled my head when I took Hinami was the public’s gaze, then what filled it when I took Haeun were those shitty memories. The flavors were different, but there was no need to decide which one tasted better.
“…Should I get on all fours? Should I bring the leash?”
“Wait.”
I left the room, leaving her kneeling obediently on the bed waiting for me. Then I brought back the leash that our pet Haeun liked the most and returned to the room. Like a dog hearing the word “walk,” she wagged her hair instead of a tail in excitement as I attached the leash to her choker.
“…Woof.”
Showing off her trick, she spun halfway around and presented her tailbone to me. As she lay flat and barked, her ass—lacking a tail—wiggled cutely. I gripped the leash tightly and stirred her body, already thoroughly marked with my scent. As much as she had messed up. Thoroughly. I had to punish her properly.
**
Morning. Even though it was the off-season, there was a schedule today. But I turned off the blaring alarm and immediately checked the phone I used for personal purposes.
“…”
…There was still no reply. No, more than that—he hadn’t even read it. From the DM I sent after he left, to the last DM I sent before going to sleep. Not a single one. This…. …Ha. No. Let’s not get angry. Over a guy like that.