Exposed (8)
“What’s your evidence?”
“…I’ll tell you once we move somewhere else.”
I drove the car out and slipped into a nearby dark alley, killed the engine, and switched off the interior light. Only then did Seo Jia, who had been lying across the seat, sit up. She brushed the dust from her shoulders and turned to me.
“The username of that part-timer at your gym and the one who sent us the DMs are almost identical. The vowels are just in slightly different positions.”
“And that’s your evidence?”
“…Plus she’s an acquaintance. If it’s Hwang Suah, even if she noticed something from seeing your body, it wouldn’t be strange at all.”
Listening to her, I had to admit it sounded plausible. Similar usernames, frequent access to my body as an acquaintance, and her behavior today had been suspicious as hell. There was no hard proof, but I was already half convinced myself.
“Still feels weak.”
“…Then who do you think it is?”
“I’m not saying it’s someone else. I’m saying you can’t just slap a conclusion on it that easily.”
Still, I had no intention of accepting Jia’s theory. The reason was simple. The Hwang Suah I knew was far too ordinary and timid to do anything dangerous even if she had figured something out. If she were that kind of person, she would have caused a scene back when she called me in the middle of that threesome. Just like how Haeun had contacted me yesterday after nearly causing an accident on broadcast.
Maybe sending the DM had simply been out of curiosity. When I replied aggressively in a half-admitting tone, she had gotten scared and disappeared immediately.
“…Why are you suddenly defending Hwang Suah?”
“Why? Because you haven’t brought me any real evidence.”
Of course, that was how I saw it. From Seo Jia’s perspective, it probably felt completely different. After all, this wasn’t my weakness on the line; it was hers. If someone held a blade to my throat, I wouldn’t have the luxury of wondering whether they planned to stab me or not.
That didn’t mean I had any reason to take her side. Even if I did, I doubted she would feel grateful.
“…Fine. Look at this. It’s her Twitter.”
“What about it?”
“Once you see what kind of woman your part-timer really is, you’ll understand.”
Even after looking at the account she showed me, my opinion didn’t change. It was simply… a cosplay account that wasn’t exactly normal but nothing particularly alarming. Her language was cruder than in real life and her outfits were provocative, yet she never quite crossed the line. Just a little more revealing than Haeun.
Still, it only added another spoonful to the suspicion. It was nowhere near conclusive proof. The only real proof would be snatching her phone and going through it.
“She’s liked dirty stuff from the start, and she has other accounts too. Back then she followed a ton of sex accounts. She posted cosplay photos and deleted them later, but….”
“How the hell do you know about her past in that much detail?”
“…We have a personal connection.”
“I already knew that from last time. But how close are you two that you even know about her burner account? The way you’re talking, it doesn’t sound like you just dug this up recently.”
“…”
The more I listened, the more I realized something had been twisted from the very beginning. I could understand her hostility toward Suah.
…But wasn’t she unusually well-informed? Even if they got to know each other through the gym, would they really become close enough for her to go digging through Twitter? And why would a famous idol bother digging up tweets from her older sister’s acquaintance in the first place?
“…Do you like her or something?”
“Are you insane?”
“No, I just thought… after you kissed Hinami last time, maybe you swung that way.”
“That was…! She did that on her own. It was disgusting.”
For a second I wondered if this woman had lesbian tendencies, but the way she furiously denied it told me that even if she did, she had zero intention of admitting it. Then there had to be another reason.
What possible reason could she have for being so obsessed with Suah? Staring at her face while retracing the past, the memory that had surfaced earlier flashed through my mind again.
…Now that I thought about it, the reason Suah had called me while I was in the middle of a threesome was because Jia had been looking for me, wasn’t it?
Could this woman have tried to coax Suah into helping her bury me, only to fail? Back then we were both desperate to stab each other in the gut, so it was entirely possible.
“Then what is it? Let me be clear. I’m not going to harass my part-timer over vague evidence like this.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all, Kang Juhyuk.”
So I decided to do something that wasn’t like me. No matter what Jia said, I would shield Hwang Suah. It wasn’t because she was the niece of a close senior, and it wasn’t because she was my employee. I simply owed her one favor, while I owed this one absolutely nothing.
“What exactly did you think I was going to do?”
“…Did you sleep with her?”
“Hey.”
Because I had acted out of character, Seo Jia seemed to have misunderstood in a strange direction. Had I crushed her mentality so thoroughly that she had gone mad? Hearing a line that would make the senior who had lent me money faint, I put on a genuinely serious expression and gave her a short denial.
“…Of course I thought that after what I said, you’d try to lay your hands on Hwang Suah. The way you’re talking makes it sound like you already have.”
“Are you crazy? I only hired her because she’s the niece of a close senior.”
“You even have close seniors like that…? Ha. Never mind that. Just because she’s a close senior’s niece is no guarantee she won’t try to harm us, is it?”
“…”
But Seo Jia, whose personality had already been shattered, either wasn’t listening or simply didn’t care. She kept spitting out the same filthy accusations against our innocent part-timer as before.
…It was starting to piss me off. Just because she lived that way didn’t mean the entire world thought the same. The only person around me who operated with a similar mindset was myself.
Maybe that was why her mind was so transparent to me. It only made me more disgusted. I wasn’t sure if this counted as self-hatred.
“…Anyway. If you’re not going to do anything about it, I’ll ask her myself. The goal is to make her keep her mouth shut either way.”
“Don’t touch her. She got scared and stopped sending DMs anyway.”
“That might be enough for you, but I can’t relax.”
“What exactly do I need to do for you to feel at ease?”
“…No matter what you do alone, I won’t feel at ease. Not unless you personally shut Hwang Suah’s mouth.”
Looking at Seo Jia—who had become so negative she couldn’t trust a single person and radiated nothing but venom—I hid the revulsion rising in my chest and continued the conversation as calmly as possible. It seemed our sister-in-law had been living like this ever since she was raped by her brother-in-law.
…Well, half of that was my fault. The other half was simply because she had always been this kind of person.
“Then I’ll shut her mouth for you, so don’t do anything.”
“…Suddenly?”
“You said it yourself, didn’t you? That I slept with her. If we’re already sleeping together like you claimed, I can at least keep her mouth shut. Can’t I?”
“…”
“…It won’t be free, of course.”
“…No way.”
Honestly, whether I left her alone or not had nothing to do with me, but I hated seeing her acting this way around me. I didn’t need to attach some deep reason to it.
It was just that she reminded me exactly of how I had been as a kid, and that was unpleasant to watch. Infinitely polite and courteous to people who were useful to her, yet inside she trusted no one—an arrogant little brat drunk on her own superiority.
“No way, what?”
“…You didn’t plan all of this from the beginning, did you?”
“…What?”
“You told Hwang Suah to do it. To send me these DMs. And now you’re going to do that again as payment for shutting her mouth, aren’t you?”
“What if I did?”
“…”
There was only one way to fix the personality of a kid like this.
Throw her into the abyss. Once wasn’t enough. Dozens of times. If she drowned in an endless swamp of despair, she would realize it on her own.
“Think whatever the fuck you want. Whether I’m colluding with Suah to pull this shit, or whether you’re just overinterpreting everything and throwing a tantrum.”
“…”
“And make sure you remember this.”
“What…?”
“Why the hell would I need a reason to fuck you?”
“…”
There was no rational justification whatsoever. Simply because she had been unlucky. Because she had piled up karma throughout her life. She would quickly learn how effective an unfair life was at reshaping someone’s personality. After tasting it a few times, she would understand.
“…Either lie down on your own or bow your head. I’m turning the light on.”
“…”
“Whether the paparazzi catch us or not, handle it yourself. Honestly, even if we get caught, it’s not exactly a loss for me, is it?”
Surprisingly, living like this didn’t kill you. Once you paid off all your karma, the past stopped being something worth missing. She would come to understand that in her own way—that deviation felt far better than a life spent under constant suppression.