Did Your Boyfriend Cum?
The apartment was cleaner than I had expected. It was a low-rise place you saw all over the provinces, more villa than apartment building, and it looked as if it had only recently been put up; there was nothing cluttered or dated about it, from the exterior all the way through to the interior. White wallpaper, white sink and furniture, bright lighting, and wood flooring made the place feel surprisingly comfortable. It wasn’t exactly right next to the university district, but it was the perfect size for quiet, studious undergrads living with roommates.
But the moment three adults stepped inside, the place’s innate crampedness became obvious. The layout was simple: two small bedrooms split off from a modest living room, with a tiny kitchen tacked onto one side, barely enough for a sink and an induction burner meant for a single household. Once the table standing in the corner of the living room had been dragged to the center, there was almost no spare space left — just enough for three people to sit, and not much more.
“Mister, it’s still neat, right? Nayeon’s such a neat freak that she exhausts me. Hehe.”
Jieun was already tongue-tied with drink as she spilled cans of beer from a convenience store bag. Nayeon stood dazed in the entryway, and only after I came in did she finally, reluctantly lock the door. The metallic click of the deadbolt engaged echoed louder than it should have.
“All right, let’s wet our throats first.”
Jieun filled the glasses to the brim and asked, as soju and beer sloshed together in them. She was already quite drunk, repeating what she’d said earlier and laughing uproariously while Nayeon yawned again and again, as if fatigue and tension had both caught up with her at once. On the surface, the conversation continued in a casual, almost indifferent way. But Jieun’s energy, combined with the alcohol, quickly changed the tenor of the room.
“Should we play Truth or Dare? No, let’s go classical. Finger-folding game. I’ll start. I’m dating someone right now, fold one.”
Jieun held up five spread fingers in suggestion. Nayeon kept avoiding my eyes, stealing glances at me instead. One of her fingers bent weakly. Then it was Nayeon’s turn to target me.
“I’m working at a company right now.”
When it came to me, I went after both of them.
“I’m a college student right now, fold one.”
“Tch, Mister, you’re no fun at all! Don’t say obvious stuff — give us something hotter.”
Jieun snickered and mixed in more soju. Then she narrowed her eyes and threw out a bomb.
“I’m dating someone, but I’ve felt shaken by another person recently. Fold one!”
Nayeon’s eyes lost their focus and brushed across my face before darting away again. She couldn’t hide how flustered she was, and she stared at me helplessly, unable to decide whether to bend a finger or keep it straight. I drank it in as if I were enjoying her reaction. With the alcohol came a game that steadily turned more and more shameless.
“I’ve had a one-night stand or a secret hookup. Fold one.”
The instant Jieun finished speaking, I folded one finger. Her eyes widened.
“Whoa, seriously? Mister, really? Who was it? What kind of woman was she?”
Jieun leaned in hard, her body pressed close to mine as she poured out her curiosity. She was so drunk she pushed in too close, enough that the fullness of her breasts was unmistakably pressed against my arm. Nayeon, too, looked awkward, as if worried I was talking about her, but she perked up and watched only my lips. Her expression held a strange mixture of jealousy and curiosity. Instead of answering, I smiled lazily and drained my glass of somaek.
“It’s a secret. Next.”
“Ugh, what? I’m definitely making you tell me later.”
After a few more turns, with Jieun’s face fully flushed red, she looked back and forth between me and Nayeon with glassy eyes and then curved her mouth into a wicked smile.
“I... have someone here that I want to have sex with. Fold one.”
Jieun folded one of her own fingers before she had even finished speaking. A silence settled over the cramped living room. I could hear Nayeon’s breathing turn rough.
“Mister, I never said Mister! It could be Nayeon, Nayeon!”
Jieun cackled and leaned her body toward me, but there was an unmistakable challenge in her eyes. Having self-destructed by folding all her fingers, she emptied the glass in front of her in one gulp.
“Ugh... ah, wait... bathroom...”
All at once, Jieun bolted for the bathroom. She turned on the water and slammed the door shut with a bang. Nayeon stared blankly at the air, then let her head drop onto the table. It made sense; she was sleepy enough. I got up from my seat. From the bathroom came the sound of Jieun wrestling with the toilet, probably throwing up, while the water ran on. I took hold of Nayeon’s narrow shoulder, which had slumped across the table, and helped her upright. Her body was hot, flushed with alcohol.
“Let’s go to the room.”
I picked up the sleeping Nayeon and carried her into the room beside us — the small room with her bed in it. In case Jieun heard anything from the bathroom, I closed the door silently and set Nayeon down carefully on the bed.
“...Mister...?”
Nayeon cracked her eyes open in a haze, but my dark shadow had already come over her. I sat beside her pillow and traced the back of her white neck with my fingers. In the secretive enclosure of the room, with Jieun’s retching and the rush of water faintly bleeding through the door, I asked in a very low voice:
“What happened yesterday?”
Gentle, yet impossible to refuse. Nayeon shook her head as if trying to avoid answering, but my hand caught her chin and held it still.
“You have to tell me. You met your boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you meet him?”
“...At a motel.”
“So did you do it?”
“Ah...”
Nayeon’s voice was damp with fear, a nose-tinged sound soaked in guilt. I found myself wanting to push harder into her inner self.
“Did you? So did your boyfriend cum? Didn’t you tell him you had to study? You should’ve said no.”
As I stroked Nayeon’s cheek and questioned her, she broke into the tears she’d been holding back and began to confess.
“Mister... I think I’m a really horrible bitch.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Yesterday... the moment I saw him, I felt so sorry... I just did whatever he wanted. Even at the motel, I thought if I just went along with everything, maybe the guilt would ease a little, but...”
Nayeon wrapped her own face in her hands and trembled.
“But... but my body wouldn’t keep up. Every time he touched me, I kept thinking about you... I felt awful, and yet at the same time I was so scared of myself for wanting something even more intense.”
It was a confession braided from fear and disgust. I listened to the end without any criticism at all. So she’d been struggling. Maybe I’d pushed her too hard. Staring at her face for a moment longer, I used the most tender expression in the world and wiped the wetness from her cheek with my thumb.
“You don’t want to break up with your boyfriend, do you?”
At my question, Nayeon nodded with effort. I brushed her hair back behind her ear and whispered in a very low voice.
“It’s okay to be confused, Nayeon. None of this is your fault.”
I looked into her eyes.
“Then don’t break up. I don’t want you suffering because of me, and I especially don’t want you carrying guilt.”
Nayeon’s wet eyes widened. I could almost hear the sound of her defenses collapsing under the unexpected generosity.
“Instead... with me, if you want to, we can just be friends. Keep it completely secret from everyone else. Our own little secret friendship.”
“Mister...”
“I’ll be your mentor, like a father to you, and sometimes your lover, too. I’m fine with it, so you just relax and go wherever your heart leads you. Okay?”
Snared by that perfect trap, Nayeon finally came apart and threw herself into my arms. I patted her back slowly and tossed out a light joke.
“You’re completely like a baby when you’re drunk, Nayeon.”
Nayeon looked up at me with tearful eyes. Her gaze was a mix of foggy intoxication and relief. Her lips moved toward mine first, as if drawn by a magnet. I waited just long enough, then swallowed those innocent lips whole. Saliva tangled into thin strings, and rough breaths filled the narrow room. After savoring her for a long while, I brought my lips close to her ear and whispered coldly.
“If Nayeon wants, I’ll stay by your side forever. When you fight with your boyfriend and want to badmouth someone, I’ll curse him out with you. And when something good happens, I’ll be happier than anyone else for you.”
Nayeon’s breathing settled. Her face was buried in my chest, and she was devoting all her attention to my voice alone. I stroked her back slowly, with deliberate gentleness.
“And later, if you meet someone really good, I’ll look at him with you and get to know what kind of person he is... If you end up with someone you’ll spend your whole life with, that’s fine too. Just tell me everything and talk it through with me. Okay?”
“Mister... is it really okay if I do that? I... I’m such a bad girl...”
Nayeon looked up at me, whimpering. In those eyes, relief and transgression were mixed together in a strange, intoxicating way.
“Yeah... now you’re mine, so you can’t keep anything from me.”
That wasn’t some off-the-cuff line I invented just now in order to pin down Nayeon’s wavering emotions and make them mine. It was simply because my nature already inclined me toward sustained caretaking, and because I knew that if sexual desire was joined to it, I could keep a relationship tighter, stickier, and far more durable. As I had said before, I had always possessed an exceptional capacity for empathy and observation, enough to detect other people’s emotional deprivation like a ghost scenting blood.
Even women who seemed confident on the surface would see the walls inside them collapse without resistance if you touched the fragile place within. Once the lock on the heart came undone, the legs naturally spread. That was how I continued relationship after relationship, slipping them into traps that were not quite traps, sustaining emotional and physical ties over the course of their lives, while I remained their deepest secret and their master.
Sometimes we would plunge into sex or phone sex as if possessed; other times we would do nothing more than sit quietly and exchange emotional intimacy, stretching the relationship thin and tough like wire. To others it might have sounded insane, but that was how I had filled their lack and satisfied the emptiness inside myself. And by the time that satisfaction faded, I was always off hunting for another person in need.
Just like the girl trembling in my arms right now.
