Ruin (2)
"Honestly, a beauty like me isn't exactly common..."
Day four of confinement. Lunchtime.
For reasons I couldn't fathom, Baek Hanyoung's condition kept deteriorating as the hours crawled by. She'd wedged herself into a corner of the cell and stayed there, muttering under her breath, rattling off something strange at a rapid, feverish clip.
Is she actually sick?
A Superhuman can last seven days in the desert without a drop of water. And yet here she was, reduced to this just from hearing something she didn't like.
"Why doesn't the world see my true charm? It's so unfair... Does everyone just hate me?"
"H-Hanyoung?"
If I left her like this, something weird was going to happen, so I tried talking to her.
"..."
"Um, you're not still hung up on what I said earlier, are you?"
Even I knew that was the worst possible thing I could have said. From her perspective, I'd just dumped her.
"That's ridiculous. Do you have any idea how pretty I am? I don't lose to anyone."
"H-Hanyoung?"
"Sehyun."
Hanyoung, who'd been hanging her head, suddenly snapped it up. I jumped so hard my whole body recoiled like a startled cat.
"I'm pretty, right?"
"Y-yeah... You are. Pretty."
"Then why won't you go out with me?"
"There's no law that says you have to date someone just because they're beautiful. P-please, stop..."
"You know, the idea that you can't date someone else just because you already have a girlfriend is actually the weird part."
That was genuinely insane. Her condition was definitely getting worse.
"I'm absolutely right, and you're wrong. That's how we ended up here. Don't you think?"
"P-please stop talking like that. Saying it doesn't change anything."
"Ehehe. I'm being weird? There you go again, saying things I don't like."
Hanyoung shot to her feet. The intimidation radiating from that towering frame — she had to be six feet tall — sent a tingling numbness through my entire body. It felt like I'd wandered into a grizzly's den. My body started shaking on its own. If this woman so much as snapped her fingers, my skull was finished.
"Why are you so afraid?"
"I..."
"You should look me in the eyes when you speak."
"I-I...!"
"What, do you think I'm going to eat you? How disappointing."
Those black eyes. Huge, vivid, the kind of color that looked like it would swallow you whole if you met them head-on. She smiled, baring teeth that looked more like a beast's than a human's. Why was she smiling like that?
"How old are you, Sehyun?"
She brushed my hair aside and pressed her fingers into my forehead, poking down with steady, deliberate pressure.
"T-twenty-one..."
"That's not much of an age gap. They say a six-year difference isn't even worth checking compatibility for."
"Haha... That's a funny joke."
"I'm not joking."
"I-I already told you no earlier."
Her fingers suddenly stopped. Not a twitch. She looked less like a human being and more like a doll that had simply... stopped.
"Hey."
Goosebumps erupted across my skin. Could a single word really be that terrifying? My eyelids started twitching on their own. I swallowed a dry lump down my throat.
"You think I'm a pushover."
"I don't know what you're talking about... D-don't make that face. It's scary."
"You think I'm easy, so you're just toying with me, aren't you? Yesterday you used every last inch of my body. And now I can't even get married to anyone but you! I might already be pregnant with your child! You! You! You weren't supposed to do this!!!"
I clapped my hands over my ears just in time. If I hadn't, my eardrums would have burst. Even with them plugged, my ears were ringing.
"You!"
"Y-yes..."
"From now on, you're my sex slave."
"Th-that's a bit of a problem... Haha, just calm down for a second. How about you close your eyes, meditate for a minute, and try walking yourself through the process of letting go of all that inner turmoil?"
"No."
What happened next took less than a heartbeat. I closed my eyes and opened them, and my body was already airborne. The sensation of something seizing me and hurling me only caught up a fraction of a second later.
What? Did she just throw me? I blinked again, and I was lying on the bed.
Shhhk. Hanyoung, who'd been all the way across the room, closed the distance to the bed in a flash. She was so fast it kicked up a gust of wind. The breeze tickled my skin.
"Wh-whoa! Hey!"
"You think I'm joking? I've never been more serious in my life. From now on, you live as my slave."
"Y-you're a hero! You are!"
"Before I'm a hero, I'm a woman."
This was all wrong. It wasn't even like her affection gauge had flipped over to lust. Why the hell was she doing this to me?
"And isolating this vicious cock from other women is my duty as a hero."
"That doesn't make any sense!"
"I'll isolate it inside my pussy."
Squeeze. Hanyoung hoisted me up and locked her forearm around my throat from behind. It looked like an ordinary woman's arm, but the muscle crushing down on me was on a completely different level from any living thing on this planet.
"Ghk! Ghhk!"
I'd seen this on TV before. A rear naked choke — a wrestling technique. And she was using it on me? On a scrawny, fragile guy like me? I was going to die. I was actually going to die!
"Ghk! Ghhk! S-save... me!"
"Shh, shhhhh... Stay still."
"I'm actually going to die! Ghhk..."
In an instant, my airway was completely cut off. My face went beet-red and burned with heat. My head started pounding worse and worse. Just as I started thinking I might actually die, Baek Hanyoung released the choke.
"Hahhk! Haaaaahk!"
"That's all you've got? And you call yourself a Superhuman. Come on, entertain me a little more."
"You're insane..."
If I'd stayed still for even a few more seconds just now, I wouldn't have been able to escape death. And she'd done it with a completely casual expression. Was this her real personality all along?
"How was it? They say people feel their best when they're running out of oxygen."
I had no idea where she'd heard that, but it was complete nonsense. This hurt like hell — what part of it was supposed to feel good?
"Ghk..."
"Ah! So you're different. Hmm. Right, I shouldn't assume everyone's the same. There's always an exception. It's a shame you happen to be one of them."
"Huff... huff..."
"But it looks like I got everything I wanted anyway. You're going to be my sex slave from now on, right?"
This woman had already forfeited any right to call herself a hero. A slave? This was the twenty-fourth century. "Slave" was a dead word you only saw in textbooks anymore.
"D-don't say such awful things."
"Maybe another choke will knock some sense into you."
"O-okay! I'll do it!"
I really didn't want to go along with her. I had a man's pride too. But the power to rip that pride to shreds was currently sitting in Baek Hanyoung's arms.
The tables have completely turned. Why is this happening to me...
Just yesterday I'd clearly been the one on top. And now, without even noticing the shift, I'd ended up crushed underneath.
If Baek Hanyoung had ever truly wanted to, she could have subdued someone like me without breaking a sweat.
The same way no parent ever genuinely loses to their child — Hanyoung had simply been putting up with my little "game." Her strength was more than enough to make the alternative a reality.
In this state, even if Han Yuri and Kim Yerin both jumped in, they wouldn't be able to beat her.
Even if I deployed puppets in this cramped space, they wouldn't even buy time. She'd smash them one by one. The best I could do right now was accept Baek Hanyoung's demands.
"Heheheh."
"Ahaha..."
"Eheheheh. Finally, you're listening. Stay still. From now on, I'm going to touch you however I want."
Baek Hanyoung ran her fingers over my thighs without mercy. This was how she was going to satisfy those base, cowardly desires of hers. Her fingers swept down over my thighs. The sensation was strange — like a bug had latched onto the inside of my legs.
If she applied even a little force, she'd tear the flesh right off me.
I couldn't resist in any way. If I so much as rubbed Baek Hanyoung the wrong way, I was guaranteed a brutal end. I'd play along as much as I could... and then run the second Kim Yerin called for me.
"Damn, your skin is ridiculously nice."
"Yeah..."
"Did your girlfriend put you on a skincare routine or something? It's rare for a guy to have skin this good."
Grab. Baek Hanyoung seized the flesh of my inner thigh in her hand. My body went ice-cold in that instant. My brain stopped working. It felt like an electric shock running straight down my spine.
"Just getting touched and you're already losing your mind. Look at you."
"Nngh..."
"You thought I didn't notice, didn't you? That first day, you sneakily put your hands on my body."
She noticed that?
...Well, you'd have to be pretty oblivious not to notice.
It wasn't even sneaky — I'd groped her outright. Of course she'd notice. But she was still holding onto that?
"That's why I'm putting my hands on you now."
"Aaahh..."
"Since you're going to live as my sex slave from now on... I'll lock you up at home and touch you every single day."
About forty percent submission remaining. Until that filled up, I was probably going to get thoroughly taken by Baek Hanyoung. For a very, very long time. And it was going to be agonizing.
I squeezed my eyes shut. From here on out, I was going to have to leave my body in my skill's hands.