Exposed (14)
“You’re late.”
“Sorry. Something came up for a bit.”
When I came back downstairs, Haeun was sitting on the sofa with her chin propped on her hand, greeting me with a pouty face. Unlike usual, she didn’t welcome me warmly. And unlike her typical style, she wasn’t wearing shorts or a tank top. She had on an oversized boxy tee and baggy sweats. As she glared at me with a thoroughly annoyed expression, I raised both hands in surrender. She let out a sharp huff, leaned back, crossed her legs, and spoke to me in a haughty tone.
“Who were you with?”
“Your sister.”
“…Why?”
“She got caught uploading some explicit photos to her private account by someone she knows, so she came to me for advice.”
“That’s a ridiculously lame excuse.”
“Here.”
Even though I’d said it myself, the answer sounded completely unbelievable, so instead of wasting time explaining, I tossed my phone over to her. She caught it and started scrolling through my screen with quick swipes.
“…As expected, I like that my master is so honest.”
“I’m not exactly honest. Just blunt.”
With her anger mostly dissipated and her face looking somewhat normal again, she handed both phones back and flopped sideways onto the sofa. I slipped my phone into my pocket, then opened hers and gave it a quick once-over as well. After confirming she’d been bragging about me to her friends again today, I returned it and sat down with my back against the edge of the sofa, tilting my head all the way back.
“…Did you sleep with her?”
“No comment.”
“You did. You reek of it.”
She was lying stretched out on the sofa, running her fingers through my short hair. She twirled them around the crown of my head and asked the question in a low voice. When I avoided answering—neither confirming nor denying—she moved her hand to stroke my shoulder, her voice growing even softer and more drawn out.
“Isn’t that a bit much? Your cute little roommate has been waiting patiently at home, and you go off and do dirty things with my sister.”
“It couldn’t be helped.”
“It really couldn’t be helped? …Or did you just want to do it?”
“…I won’t deny it.”
“Seriously. …You’re way too honest for your own good.”
While kneading my shoulder with that seductive voice, she gradually started tugging at my clothes. She undid one of my shirt buttons, slipped her hand inside, and did exactly what I always did to her—squeezing my pecs firmly, lightly teasing my nipple, then sliding her fingers across my collarbone and back to my shoulder.
“Hm? …What’s this…? Did you get hurt?”
“A little.”
The moment she saw the small wound left on top of my scar, her face crumpled into a deep frown and she slid off the sofa.
“You’re even bleeding. Did she scratch you?”
“…It’s complicated to explain.”
“Wait, those look like nail marks…. Seriously. What the hell is she doing to someone else’s man?”
Only then did she notice the nail marks on my neck. Her previously sultry voice instantly turned serious. She crawled on all fours to rummage through a drawer, then brought back bandages and ointment, fussing over me.
She pulled out a band-aid from the box, tore off the wrapper, and exposed my shoulder. She squeezed a bit of ointment onto the stinging, itchy wound, spread it with her index finger, then stuck the band-aid on top. Finally, she gave my shoulder a light smack and pressed down firmly with her palm so it wouldn’t come off.
“That hurts.”
“It’s supposed to hurt.”
When I grumbled at the slightly mischievous touch, she grabbed my ear, pulled it close, and whispered. She blew warm air into it. I barely managed to suppress the shiver that ran through me. Then I heard her swallow hard before she gently bit down on my earlobe.
Slurp, suck—the wet, noisy sounds of her devouring me buzzed right against my eardrum. Little by little, she pressed her body against mine until she was softly straddling me.
“…Don’t push your body too hard.”
“Got it.”
“If you get hurt, I become useless.”
Her selfish-sounding words of concern. It was like she was warning me that she only had value if I existed. I nodded and gently stroked her back. Only after her loose t-shirt clung to her skin did she hug me tightly, let out a heavy breath, bury her face in my uninjured shoulder, and leave a bite mark there. Then she lifted her head, gave my neck a light kiss, climbed off me, and trotted toward the kitchen.
“…I’ll make dinner, so go wash up and eat. …You smell.”
“What smell?”
“Woman smell. …It’s way too strong.”
Haeun grumbled without even looking at me. I gave her a small bow, then did as she said and jumped into the bathroom. I covered the scent of the body wash I’d borrowed upstairs with my usual fragrance. When I came out after showering, Haeun—who had been preparing dinner—sniffed me, then finally poured a generous amount of dressing over the salad.
In return, after we finished eating, I poured a thick load of my own “dressing” into Haeun when she crawled into bed that night. She complained that it was a bit too watery, but since I gave her so much, her eyes looked thoroughly satisfied.
**
…I had no idea how I was supposed to face the boss.
I’d somehow gotten through that moment without much trouble, but realistically, seeing her throw a fit like that, wouldn’t she have gotten curious and checked my Instagram? There were no boyfriend photos or anything like that on there, so if she asked about it the very next day, what the hell was I supposed to say?
Come to think of it, why had I been so terrified of her just searching my username once? It actually made me look more suspicious. If I had just nodded smoothly and played it off, she might not have noticed….
“Good morning.”
“…Ah! Good morning, boss.”
No matter how much my legs were shaking, the boss didn’t skip coming in. As always, she showed up right on time with her neat, polished face.
“Yeah. So, Suah. Nothing unusual this morning, right?”
“No. I mean, nothing at all.”
Praying desperately that the boss hadn’t secretly looked up my Instagram, I forced the corners of my mouth up into a smile as I greeted her. But my awkward expression must have looked funny, because she stared at me with an unpleasant smile and showed no sign of leaving.
“…”
An awkward silence. Normally, she would have already changed and gone into the gym by now. But the boss kept her feet planted in my direction, smiling faintly while simply watching me.
“…Um, B-Boss…?”
“Hm? What? Got something to say?”
“N-no. I was just wondering if you weren’t going in…”
“I will. Soon.”
…The conversation was suffocating. That single word—“soon”—lodged itself in my throat and squeezed my windpipe mercilessly. “Soon” meant she had something to discuss and wasn’t moving until it was resolved. But no matter how much I looked around, the only people nearby were me and the boss.
“……”
“Suah.”
“…Yes? Yes. What is it…?”
“Why do you keep lying to me? Like when you got a substitute and went out to play last time. If you don’t want to eat, just say so. Why lie and say you have a boyfriend? You and your uncle have that connection, so if you’d just been honest, I would’ve let it slide.”
“…”
Just as I feared. The boss never once dropped her faint smile. With smiling eyes, she slowly tightened the noose around my neck.
…She saw it. She secretly checked my Instagram after work. But…! At least I changed the username. There’s no way she could know the DMs I sent were from me….
“You suddenly changed your username. Got something you’re trying to hide?”
“What? No, I-I, um, nothing…”
“You’re close with Jia, right? My sister-in-law suddenly told me you changed your username, so I wasn’t going to look, but something felt off so I checked. No boyfriend or anything.”
“Ah, uh, ehh…”
…I’m fucked.
Did she find out? Or did Jia find out first? Thinking about it, even if the boss hadn’t noticed, Jia easily could have. We’d played games together a few times and exchanged usernames. She might not have been as certain as the boss that the woman in the photos and gifs was Seo Jia, but she was actually the more dangerous one.
But if it really was Seo Jia, and she noticed first and subtly told the boss….
Am I… am I going to die? If I learned an idol’s dirty little secret, would people in black suits kidnap me and dump me in the Pacific?
“Why are you shaking so much? You’re even sweating.”
“…N-no, it’s nothing…”
“Did you eat something bad? Are you sick? I can drive you. Want to go to the hospital?”
“No! No, the car’s fine…”
“Don’t be like that. I can have Haeun cover for a bit, so if you’re sick, go to the hospital.”
“Ah, no, I’ll… I’ll go by myself…”
Once I started imagining terrifying scenarios, the anxiety kept expanding and replaying endlessly. I was trembling so violently it looked downright suspicious, and I couldn’t meet the boss’s eyes. No matter how I thought about it, I didn’t feel like I’d done anything that wrong, but learning something I shouldn’t have was definitely a sin. Only now did I truly understand how dangerous and expensive the thing I’d accidentally discovered while rolling around in bed that day really was.
“Suah.”
“Eek…!”
“…Why do you keep jumping like that? Did you actually do something wrong?”
If I leaked that… the impact would be worth at least several billion won…. At that point, getting rid of one person would be no burden at all. Even with my dumb civilian brain, deleting someone like me seemed a lot easier to clean up afterward than letting that video spread.
N-no. This is modern South Korea. There’s no way getting rid of a person is that easy….
“N-no. No. I did something wrong. I’m sorry…”
“What are you talking about? …You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Ah, yes…”
“The girl who posted lewd photos on her private account is the one who did wrong. You didn’t do anything.”
“Y-yes… ……Yes?”
…It might not be impossible. When the agency higher-ups want to bury a scandal, they might throw someone into the Pacific. In that case, the boss—whose ankles would be the first ones tied with concrete—spoke in the same casual tone she might use to pick tonight’s dinner menu.
She uttered words I couldn’t possibly mishear, in an utterly indifferent voice.
“She’ll come find you herself later, so stop shaking like that and stay still. It’s not… that big of a deal anyway.”
“…”
“It’s not like you actually blackmailed her, right? …Though she might have felt like you did.”
I stared at the boss, whose emotions seemed to have vanished in an instant. It felt like I was looking at a sociopath straight out of a comic. I froze in place, able to do nothing but swallow hard.
…Now I finally understood why the boss had so many women around her.