A Weapon to Protect Dad
Even as a child, Byeon Tae-seop had been obsessed with girls.
The trouble was that his face and body were not the sort that even young girls would find appealing. He was short, with thick, clumsy hands and feet. His torso ran as long as his legs, throwing his whole frame badly out of proportion. A snub nose that showed its nostrils. Tiny eyes. Lips so heavy they looked swollen. Even his own parents could not bring themselves to love him for his looks.
The real problem, however, was his nature. Male hormones flooded him in such excess that fate itself seemed to have designed him to be drawn, inescapably, to females.
How cruel the heavens are...
After puberty he went up to the girls his own age, but all that came back to him was a wall of cold indifference. The disastrous cocktail of exploding hormones and a minor with no social skills finally drove him across a line he should never have crossed.
"Kyaaah!! Noooo!!!!!"
"Teacher!! Emergency!! Tae-seop is— Ju-ha...!!!"
He had done it. He had put his hands on a girl in his class who had told him no.
He was still below the age of criminal responsibility, and a settlement had been reached, so he managed to avoid prison. But the problem was Tae-seop himself.
"Wh-what's so wrong about a guy liking a girl?!"
After puberty, male hormones had taken possession of his brain. Judging that reason and morality would never be enough to keep him in check, his parents pulled him out of school.
"If you just get into the best university in the country, you can meet any girl you want."
The truth was, he had a good head on his shoulders. His father was a judge. His mother was a lawyer. If not for the hormones, he had been born with the kind of mind that could have earned quite respectable grades. His parents were shrewd. That was how they baited the boy who had become a slave to his own chemistry.
"Heheh... girls... giirls......"
He began to study like a man possessed. He tore through the middle and high school equivalency exams in no time and threw himself into preparing for the college entrance exam. His obsession with women — that was what carried him into Hankuk University, the most prestigious school in the country.
His parents were overjoyed. Their son, who had been little more than a walking tantrum, had been accepted with his head held high into the Department of Architecture at Hankuk University — a school where even getting in was an honor.
"Alright, Tae-seop. Time to get ready to go out into the world, don't you think? That's how you'll get yourself a girl."
His parents started him on hormone treatment. The power of the suppressants was immense. In no time at all, they rendered his appetites powerless. The problem was that along with his craving for the opposite sex, his will to live crumbled as well.
Depression. The self-harm that followed. His parents had no choice but to cry out in despair as they stopped him, time after time, from trying to take his own life. Eventually the hormone treatment was halted. More precisely, they pivoted to administering a smaller dose of the suppressants.
The male hormones that had been held down began to goad him once more. But he was an adult now. He knew how terribly his parents had suffered because of him when he was young. Through the depression and the suicide attempts, he had come to understand a great many things — among them, that even with a degree from a good school, a man of his caliber would have a hard time dating anyone.
The suicide attempts had thoroughly marked him in his department. A student of concern. Someone you were not supposed to approach. The only people who came near him were seniors and professors who treated him as a case to be managed.
He wanted to drop out. But for the sake of the parents who had raised him, he had to graduate. So he began attending school quietly. An outsider. A loner. He had become a true outcast.
And then, into that colorless university life, the first person to show him a world in living color was Min-ah. The moment he first saw her in the lecture hall, Tae-seop's heart hammered as if a mallet were striking his chest.
Is this... fate?
Tae-seop took Min-ah to be the woman of his fated love. It might have been the unsuppressed male hormones talking. He was an adult now. He had enough social sense not to throw himself at a woman the way he once had. If it had only been the hormones, he would already have felt the same way about other female students. But for Tae-seop, Min-ah was different.
The gray world around him seemed to bloom into every color at once. His heart raced until he thought he would go mad. He became certain that this, without a doubt, was fated love.
So he tailed her. When Min-ah met Tae-min... when she met Eun-ha... he waited for her from a distance, holding his breath.
Min-ah boarded the subway to go home. He followed. A packed train. Close to Min-ah. A subway car stuffed with bodies. He pressed himself tight against her. Even after training at the Jiu-Jitsu Dojo, a sweet scent still clung to her.
A woman's scent became the trigger that sent his male hormones into a rampage. The hormones bursting through him began issuing abnormal commands to his brain, one after another.
He reached out. And he grabbed the round swell of her ass.
He squeezed.
A woman's ass, felt for the first time. This was no game. The softness, the taut spring of it in Tae-seop's hand — those sensations climbed into his skull and began pumping out dopamine at a maddening rate.
This... this feeling...!! To think I've lived this long without ever knowing it...!! I've been getting ripped off for half my life!!
He kneaded. His hands were shameless. Min-ah showed no sign of resistance.
R-right. She likes it too, she has to... our meeting... it's f-fate!!
It was a complete and utter misunderstanding. Min-ah had simply been too shocked, too terrified, to react. He kept groping her for a long time, and still she gave him nothing. The misunderstanding hardened into certainty.
Th-this is it... the place I'd only ever heard about...!
The hand that had been groping her ass beneath her skirt began to climb, thick knuckles sliding up toward that forbidden place. A damp sensation through her panties. He was certain.
See... see that?! She's enjoying it too!!
That was when his hands grew bold. He was a man faithful to his instincts, and so he was without hesitation. But the groping came to an abrupt end — because Min-ah, having beaten back her fear, subdued him with the self-defense she had learned.
This is Geumsin, Geumsin Station. The doors will open on the right.
For Tae-seop, a painfully fortunate situation unfolded. The train stopped, and the doors on the side where he was standing slid open.
"Nnngh...!!"
"Kyaaah!"
He shoved the people around him with all his strength and bolted through the open doors. A packed subway station. If he melted into a crowd like this, he told himself, she would never find him. And by the time he came stumbling up out of the station, Min-ah was nowhere to be seen.
Thank god! Thank god!
An empty alley near the station. He had run so hard that his breath caught in his throat, making him choke and gag. Still, the sprint had been worth it. Nobody had come after him.
"Hah... thank god... thank god... hah... hah....... "
"You groped my ass and ran, and now you're calling yourself lucky?"
At the sudden sound of Min-ah's voice — sharp, piercing — Tae-seop jerked as if he had been electrocuted. A hard wrench. Min-ah folded his arm back with practiced ease, applying a technique she had learned less than an hour ago as if it were second nature.
"Hnn... HNAAAAGH!!!!"
"Shut up."
"H-hiiik!! Please!! Please, just this once, let me go!"
The lock tightened.
"I said shut up!!"
"Hah... haaagh!! It hurts!! It huuurts!!"
"Scream one more time and I'll snap what I'm holding."
"N-no! Nooo!"
"Then shut your mouth, you fat pig!"
"Hnn... mmmph!"
He shoved his remaining left hand into his own mouth, trying to smother the screams that kept tearing out of him against his will.
"Don't talk. Just listen. If you understand, nod."
"Mmph...!"
A crack of joint and bone.
"I said don't answer!"
Tae-seop's head bobbed in a frantic, rapid-fire nod.
"You're a Hankuk University student, aren't you?"
Tae-seop hesitated.
"I already know everything."
The lock bit down.
"Mmphh!!"
Only when the pain hit did Tae-seop finally understand how he was supposed to behave.
"Want me to send you straight to the police from here?"
"Mmph-mmph!"
He shook his head with wild, desperate force.
"Or do you want to do what I tell you?"
From Tae-seop's perspective it was a choice, and yet it was no choice at all. He had no option but to do exactly as Min-ah said.
"It's not going to be easy, by the way. If things go south, I won't be able to help you."
"Mmph...."
"And you'll keep your mouth shut about who put you up to it. Otherwise..."
The lock wrenched down again.
"MMPHH!!"
Agony tore through his arm once more.
"You'll get extra punishment for what you did today, on top of everything else."
Tae-seop's mind went white. Only moments ago, he had been imagining himself as Min-ah's lover. Now he was a prisoner with her leash around his throat.
A smile spread across every inch of Min-ah's face.