Hunt, and Predation (2)
There was no strength left in my arms.
None in my waist either—and if those had given out, what hope was there for the rest of me?
Until moments ago he had tormented my sex with relentless precision, and now a man had seized my hips, on the verge of forcing himself into me.
Even if that man was the Young Master I had watched grow up through an entire lifetime of courtesan work, this was absolutely not the situation I had wanted.
The ideal scenario I had imagined went like this: take yesterday’s revenge, tease the Young Master until he was desperate, make him submit before me… extract from his own mouth a promise that he would recommend me to Cheonghwa—no, that he would send me to Beijing for the Un-cheong examination—and then return to Nakseongguan with my dignity intact to set the departure date.
Not this. Not being forced, face-down on the floor, to say that I wanted the Young Master’s cock in place of the Emperor’s.
“I really… don’t want this… ngh—why does everyone… me, you, every single person… why is everyone so desperate to destroy me…?”
I had hated it for as long as I could remember.
From the day I was a low-ranking courtesan, I had hated everything about this house.
“Have you lost your mind, you little bitch? Telling a client to go wash up because he smells?!”
“Why can’t you just endure it? What are you going to do when every client walks out on you?”
“You think Nakseongguan belongs to you? Keep acting like you live here alone and you’ll never set foot on the fourth floor.”
“Do your damn job properly! Who do you think you are—Lady Cheonghwa? You think big spenders like Lord Yang grow on trees? If he says he’s never coming back because of you, are you going to take responsibility?!”
“And you dare challenge that authority? Not even to my face—to my precious son?! How thoroughly, disgustingly underhanded!!”
Because it was work.
Because it was work…
I no longer knew how many times I had swallowed my rage with that excuse.
Then if I just become the best at this job… won’t that shut every last one of them up?
Clinging to that thought alone, I clenched my teeth and became a Hui.
I buried the part of myself that wanted to smash everything and walk away in a corner of my heart, and performed the ideal courtesan to perfection. Among the upper-rank girls, I poured everything into every single moment so that anyone who so much as looked at me would feel that I existed on a different plane from the rest.
And the strategy worked beautifully.
Above the upper ranks—what they called Heaven Beyond Heaven.
The first courtesan ever to set foot there—
—Ilhui, Wolbaek.
But it took less than five years for that reputation to come crashing down.
I had humiliated the son of Cheonghwa, the mistress of Nakseongguan.
Ihwi, Samhui… the income the Hui brought in kept rising, but the scarcity of the title itself dwindled. My once-loyal regulars, after a single night with me, stopped seeking me out.
“I know… this aging body, these dulled skills, the coquetry that now just looks pathetic, the bedroom technique that…”
Looking at me now, who could possibly call my bedroom skills dazzling?
Toyed with by a man nine years younger, crawling wretchedly across the floor, begging to be spared.
Even a virgin on her first night wouldn’t fall apart like this.
“Hic… ngh—hic, hic… hh…”
“….”
Until the sobbing subsided, Jin Yu said nothing.
He simply sat behind me, stroking my back, waiting for me to calm down.
“Hic… hh…”
Why did that touch feel so comforting?
These were the same hands that, only moments ago, had dragged me again and again into a hell of pleasure.
…Or maybe that was exactly why.
Hands that could have ignored my pleas and kept tormenting me—and yet their owner was listening, seriously, to a story no one else had ever cared to hear.
Maybe that was what warmed my heart so deeply.
“All done crying?”
“Hic—hm? Yeah…”
“Let me see, Noona.”
Only then did Jin Yu walk around in front of me.
…Had he deliberately not looked at my face while I was sobbing mindlessly—his own kind of consideration?
Even so, I didn’t want him to see the swollen mess left behind by tears.
Because I was a courtesan.
…And because I was a woman.
I dropped my gaze, avoiding his eyes.
A soft brush of movement.
In that instant his hand gently caught my chin and lifted it, and his eyes met mine.
I truly hated it—but he was of that legendary Cheonghwa bloodline. His beauty alone was enough to stop a person’s breath.
“What’s there to be so embarrassed about?”
“D-don’t look…!! A face like this, obviously—”
“Why? You’re nothing but pretty.”
“….”
“What am I supposed to do when you’re still pretty even after bawling your eyes out, Noona?”
“Pr… pretty…”
…I must have heard those words thousands of times in my life.
I knew perfectly well they were words anyone could say without a single drop of sincerity.
And still my heart answered them.
“…Noona. Are you good at night work?”
“Hh—!”
Why say it again—the same words he’d used yesterday while caressing my breasts, while breaking me the way he had just now?
Was it to remind me of my place? To tell me not to get ahead of myself?
With my chin held fixed, there was no way to escape his gaze.
I closed my eyes and let the words blur.
Tears slid out past the corners of my shut lids.
“…N-no… I’m not…”
“….”
“I got cocky… I’m sorry…. Saying I was good at it—hic, ngh—showing off… I’m sorry…”
“That’s not it. I asked the wrong question.”
“Sniff—hm…?”
When I opened my eyes, the Young Master was still looking down at me.
With an endlessly gentle expression.
“Do you like night work?”
“……??”
Like it?
…What was that supposed to mean?
Just understanding the intent of the question took a long moment.
“What… are you talking about…?”
“Exactly what I said. Mixing words, mixing tongues, mixing skin… making each other feel good. I’m asking if you like that.”
“…I don’t… understand…”
Was that something you were supposed to like?
It was work. It was what I had to do.
Whether I liked it or not, if a client paid the proper price, I performed—even if I had to act…
“…Huh?”
…Ah.
Thinking back on it—of all the entertaining I had ever done, the times I had done it because I wanted to…
…There had never been a single one.
To climb the floors.
To get ahead of everyone else.
To bring Nakseongguan the most income.
To surpass Cheonghwa, the one they called a legend.
And to prove that I was still… standing.
“I… I don’t know…”
“Is that so?”
“….”
“Then how about we make one little promise?”
“What… promise?”
The Young Master smiled, his face full of desire.
For a fleeting second, the thought crossed me that this desire was solely for me—mine alone.
Had that desire infected me somehow?
Heat flared sharp and sudden beneath my sternum.
“From now on, I’m going to make Noona feel far better than before.”
“Wh… what?”
“And every time I ask how you’re feeling along the way, you just answer ‘I like it.’ Nothing else. Only ‘I like it.’ Easy, right?”
What kind of word game was that?
He said he would make me feel good.
Then of course I would have no choice but to say I liked it…
“So yesterday really was some kind of cheap trick. Of course—where else would the Young Master who’d been caught and made to spill helplessly in front of me go?”
“How disappointing, Young Master. To think you’d try to face my sincerity with only this much…”
“You insane… perverted bastard!!”
“Don’t… do it…. I don’t want to come… I don’t want to go any further…”
“Stop tormenting my pussy…… you awful bastard……”
“…Ah.”
“Got it?”
I hung my head low.
So that was why he had asked if I liked it.
I was ashamed.
Even while spending the night with the man right in front of me—
even though I was the one who had paid—
…was it the old habit?
I had been treating this as an extension of work.
That wasn’t what the Young Master had been asking at all.
How good are you at the job, will you show me something worthy of Ilhui, why are you so bad at this…
He had never once said any of that.
Just… simply…
“Hh—?!”
“Looks like your lower hole understood a long time ago, though?”
Into the place still carrying the stimulation his tongue had left, the Young Master’s finger slid in as if gliding on oil.
I felt the walls of my passage contract.
A primal response—like saliva rising at the taste of something sour.
“S-suddenly… have you lost your mind…?”
“Ah-ah.”
Squish. Squish… schlick…
“Hahk—ahh… d-don’t stir it…!!”
“Don’t stir it? Noona, you don’t like it?”
“If you do it out of nowhere, anyone would—”
I lifted my head, eyes flaring, to glare at the Young Master whose hand was buried between my legs—and in that exact moment.
Peck.
“…?!!”
Our lips met for a brief instant, then parted just as quickly.
Right before my eyes was his beautiful face.
Close enough that our breath mixed in the space between us.
The Young Master looked straight at me.
“I believe in Noona.”
“Hh…”
“So I’ll ask again.”
Schlick, schlick, schliick—
“Ahhk… haah, hh, nnngh…!!”
“…Noona. Does it feel good?”
Heat I had thought long gone flared again from my sex, racing up my spine and flooding into my skull.
Every so often his fingers rubbed up and down over my clit, and the touch burned.
Was being caressed this roughly on the most sensitive place really this electrifying?
“Kyah—aang… ahhaaah…!!”
My vision blurred again.
The demon hands that would dunk me under the rapids of pleasure, then yank me up, then dunk me again were coming for me.
I was afraid.
Afraid that I, Ilhui Wolbaek, would fall apart again and show a face no Hui was allowed to show.
Afraid there would be even more people ready to point fingers at this vulgar display.
Afraid I would collapse in the Young Master’s hands… become a worthless courtesan in the end, and never make it to the imperial palace.
But…
But.
“It feels… ngh! goo— hh, haa…”
Right now, in the middle of those rapids, it felt as if there were hands holding me firmly in place.
The person in front of me, watching me come undone with eyes full of desire.
The person who wanted my messy, undignified self—who simply wanted me to enjoy this.
The one who had found me after ten years of hiding behind the shield called work…
My lord, who would corrupt me.
Yes.
Today was not a day for receiving clients.
It was the day I would devour the child I had raised on my back… and be devoured by him in turn.
Night work that I liked.
The day of that first experience.
“It feeels… hh…❤️ haang…!!”
Schlick, schlick, schlick, schlick——
“…I like itoo❤️ Young Masteer❤️❤️”
In front of that boy’s eyes, I wanted nothing more than to become a single bitch in heat.