Academy's Savior
I got up from the bed. Turning away without a shred of lingering attachment, I headed for the door.
"N-No!"
Choi Jeonghwa seized my wrist in a desperate rush. I curled the corner of my mouth into a sneer. I'd known she would try to stop me. To Choi Jeonghwa, her daughter Choi Dayeon and the Geumhwa Group were everything. Even if the Geumhwa Group itself survived this, Dayeon would be finished for certain. As a mother, she could not stand by and watch her daughter fall apart.
From the very beginning, unless Choi Jeonghwa truly abandoned Dayeon, this situation was locked in as my win.
"Stopping me means you're accepting my proposal, right?"
"Isn't there… something else you want? I-If it's something I can do, I'll do it. I'll agree to almost anything."
"What I proposed is something you can do, lady. Well, if you don't want to, don't."
I shook off her arm and grabbed the front door handle. Choi Jeonghwa caught my shoulder again.
"Fine. I'll do it! I'll do whatever you say! Just don't touch Dayeon. That's my condition!"
"You should have said so from the start…. We wasted a lot of time for nothing."
I strode back to the bed and sat down with full confidence. Choi Jeonghwa bit down hard on her lip. Resentment was written plain across her face. I pointed a finger at the chair in front of the bed. She sat.
"I can trust what you said, right?"
"About what?"
"…That if I do exactly what's in the photos, you'll delete Dayeon's pictures."
"Of course. If you really can't trust me, want to draw up a contract with a lawyer present? Writing a contract for something like this is pretty funny, though."
"…Forget the contract. What kind of respectable business needs a contract?"
"It would be a contract you couldn't show anyone, that's for sure. Heh."
Everything was falling into place so neatly that a laugh nearly slipped out.
The plan is working way too well.
Before setting this up, I'd run all over gathering information on Choi Jeonghwa. With money, getting intel was easy. She was a public figure already.
Choi Jeonghwa treasures her daughter. Pathologically so.
In that respect, she was a lot like Seong Ha-ri.
The reason she'd joined the parent association was Dayeon. The reason she'd followed her all the way to Arashi Academy in Japan was Dayeon too.
In the original story she wasn't quite this extreme… maybe Seong Ha-ri's influence rubbed off on her.
Either way, the conclusion was the same: Choi Jeonghwa held her daughter Choi Dayeon precious beyond measure. And what about her other family—her husband?
They live together in a mansion the size of a palace. But her husband spends more than half the year overseas. It was a political marriage, and there's zero rumor of them being a loving couple.
Choi Jeonghwa's husband also came from a chaebol family. At the time of the marriage their ranking in the business world had been around tenth; now they couldn't even crack the top hundred.
The gap between what Choi Jeonghwa and her husband each possessed was enormous. That alone was enough to make her the dominant partner—and on top of that, his family owed the Geumhwa Group money.
In the marriage, Choi Jeonghwa holds absolute power.
Her husband probably struggled just to start a conversation with her. I could guarantee it.
Their relationship is rock bottom. Political marriage, so they've probably never even had proper sex. Heh. Perfect setup.
The plan was flawless. Choi Jeonghwa's reactions were following the script exactly. And there would be no variables all the way to the end.
I've fucked women like this more than once or twice. No variables. Choi Jeonghwa, you're already mine.
I fiddled with my phone and pulled up one of Choi Dayeon's photos.
"Lady. Since it's your first time, let's start with something easy. I'm being specially considerate."
"…Whatever. If I copy the photo properly, you delete the backups too."
"Got it. I'll delete them."
"How am I supposed to trust you…."
"Ah, for god's sake, lady! If you don't want to do it, don't! This is a deal between you and me. You have to trust me, and I have to trust you. Mutual trust is what makes a deal work, right? So just trust me for now. The more you trust me, the more I'll trust you. We both do our parts well, and we can part ways cleanly."
"……This is the last trust I'm giving you."
"Good. So stop being a pain… this photo should work."
I held up the phone and showed her the picture. It was a close-up of Choi Dayeon's hair clenched in my fist. Dayeon was scowling with every ounce of resentment she could muster, glaring at the camera—at me.
"See? Super easy to copy, right? All you have to do is sit still."
"…You want me to let you grab me by the hair? Do you know what I hate most? Other people touching my hair."
I snorted.
A laugh burst out of me before I could stop it.
"And if you hate it, then what? You not going to do it?"
We had made a deal.
But both of us knew it wasn't a fair one.
Between us, I was the one with the power. The subordinate does what the superior tells them to do.
"…I'll do it."
"Give me your phone."
"Why my phone?"
"I need to shoot you from the same angle I shot Dayeon. That's how we compare how close the match is. It's not even my phone taking the pictures, so what's the problem?"
"Fine. Don't try anything weird besides the photo. I'll be watching you with both eyes."
She glared at me and growled. I wasn't scared in the slightest.
If I really decided to mess with her phone… she wouldn't be able to stop me at all.
I had the Hacking skill and Makina, the machine spirit. If I pulled something, Choi Jeonghwa would have no defense. Of course, I had no intention of cheating. Everything was already in place.
"Ready?"
I reached toward Choi Jeonghwa's hair. She flinched as my hand approached. Her hair was short—a bob, the same black as Dayeon's. Only the length was different. Dayeon's hair fell past her thighs; Choi Jeonghwa's bob barely brushed her shoulders.
Her face was so pretty that even an ordinary bob looked clean and refined on her.
"Ha, are you scared? Where'd all that fire from earlier go?"
Maybe I'd taken too long casually admiring her face. Choi Jeonghwa started pushing back. That refusal to submit was actually quite admirable.
"I was just thinking about how to grab your hair since your style's different from Dayeon's… yeah, pulling the bangs like in the photo is probably best."
I seized a fistful of hair and yanked in one motion.
"Ah…!"
Choi Jeonghwa's eyelids trembled. Murderous intent rolled off her. The claim that she hated having her hair grabbed hadn't been a lie. Not that there was a single thing she could do about it.
I held the camera in one hand and framed the shot the same way I had with Dayeon—me above, her below.
They really look like sisters. Did she deliberately copy Dayeon's angry face?
Click.
The photo came out perfectly.
Smack!
Choi Jeonghwa slapped my hand away. She'd put real force into it—my hand turned red.
"You took the picture, so let go. How long are you planning to hold on?"
"…Lady. That's not how this works. I deliberately picked an easy photo out of consideration for you. And this is how you respond?"
"Do you take me for a fool? No matter which photo it is, I have to copy it eventually. Don't act like you're doing me a favor over something that small. Every single thing you do is so filthy…. Completely different from your mother, Seong Ha-ri. Ha-ri's personality is a nightmare, but at least she isn't disgusting."
"This lady really knows how to get under someone's skin, doesn't she? Too bad. No matter what you say, the situation doesn't change. Here—next photo. Show your tits."
I showed her a photo of Dayeon with her right breast exposed. The blouse buttons undone, the bra cup pulled down, only the right breast pushed out, a pink nipple pinched and stretched between someone's thumb and forefinger. That someone was, of course, me.
"Dayeon has photos like this too… wait. I'm in the background?!"
"Heh. This one was taken in the first-floor lobby, so you just happened to get caught in the shot. Never dreamed your own daughter's nipple was being pulled right in front of you, did you?"
"You despicable bastard…!"
"Quit the noise and show your tits. Or should I do it for you?"
"…Kh…."
Choi Jeonghwa reached behind her back and lowered the zipper. She wasn't wearing a blouse—she had on an elegant one-piece in the style of a wealthy Cheongdam-dong housewife. She couldn't expose just the right breast the way the photo showed.
The dress slid down and revealed precisely the chest. Same taste as Dayeon, apparently—a black designer bra.
"Ohh. Bigger than Dayeon's, huh? F-cup, right? You can't fool my eyes."
"Would you please stop with the filthy comments?"
"You're the one hesitating and not showing them, lady."
All she had to do was grab the right bra cup and pull it down—simple. Yet Choi Jeonghwa hesitated, unable to bring herself to do it easily.
I understood. This was a different kind of thing from having her hair grabbed. Showing an intimate part of her body to another person for the first time was bound to make her resist.
Even with my provocation, she hesitated for quite a while. I deliberately didn't rush her. I already knew she would have no choice in the end, so I simply watched with the patience of someone waiting for a delicious meal.
At last, with a rigidly set face, Choi Jeonghwa pulled the right bra cup down. There was no bounce. Her breasts didn't have that kind of springy elasticity. Even with a bra on, she couldn't fool my eyes. As expected, they sagged slightly.
Her breasts flowed softly downward like a gentle stream.
"Oh."
I compared Dayeon's photo with Choi Jeonghwa. The most striking differences were the sagging shape and the nipples. Her nipples were more than half again larger than Dayeon's. The color was a deep crimson, the shade before it turns brown.
"Hurry up and take the picture!"
"Heh. It's still different from Dayeon's photo. To make it match…."
I pinched her right nipple between thumb and forefinger and pulled.
"Hnnnngh?!"
The breast stretched out along with the nipple, following my hand.
"Ah, yeah—heavier than Dayeon's. But not enough elasticity, so there's no real spring-back, I guess? Still, I'll give you credit—it stretched more than twice as far as Dayeon's nipple."
I released the tension at full stretch. The elongated nipple slowly returned to its original size. Something about the process felt sluggish, lacking force.
You can feel the age here. Unlike Dayeon, the nipple didn't even get hard….
I stared openly at Choi Jeonghwa's right breast. Just as the nipple was larger, the areola was bigger than Dayeon's too.
"……Aren't you going to take the picture?"
"Ah, right. Almost forgot. I'll take it this time."
"You've done it once, so this one is enou— khnngh?!"
I quickly reached out and pinched the nipple again, pulling it taut.
Click.