The Line That Should Never Be Crossed
This drinking session felt completely insane.
"A penalty drink would be better, right...? Haha."
Hyung's voice carried its usual easy confidence, but there was no hesitation in the way he filled his glass. I had assumed he would just laugh it off with a casual "Nah," the way he always did. That was his special talent for keeping these harmonious(?) gatherings from falling apart.
But Seunghun hyung seemed to mock my expectations. He filled his glass to the brim with the strong port wine and downed it in one go. Gulp. His Adam's apple bobbed dramatically. It was a brutally strange moment where he chose silence instead of an answer.
Instinctively, I glanced at Sujung sitting beside me. My wife said nothing. Normally, she would have tossed some playful jab at her brother-in-law, but now she just stared blankly at the empty glass he had set down. I could see the faint tremble in her fingertips as they gripped the stem of her wine glass. That heavy silence somehow felt like proof of some secret exchange between hyung and my wife, and it felt like something sharp was slicing across my chest.
"Ah... lol, why are you all acting like that? If I answer too lightly it'll be boring. Don't misunderstand, everyone!"
Hyung laughed heartily, playing it off as a joke, but his gaze had already shifted toward me. I couldn't tell if that silence of his was truly just for the sake of "game fun" or if he had swallowed some truth I didn't know about. Either way, I seemed to be the only one getting serious in this atmosphere.
"As expected, our oppa is pretending to be a gentleman to the very end? I like how honest you are."
Jian unnie narrowed her eyes seductively as she refilled hyung's empty glass. Hyung chuckled with a face flushed red, then suddenly changed his target and stared straight at me.
"Alright, then it's my turn now, huh? Hmm... since Jian already shook me down, shall I shake our Junseok down a bit?"
At hyung's declaration, Sujung finally lifted her head to look at me. Her eyes, perhaps from the alcohol, seemed much deeper and more persistent than usual as they bored into me. She leaned her body slightly against my arm and added in a very low, sticky voice.
"Oppa... you'd better be nervous. Brother-in-law, please make it something really intense. No matter how close we are, I'm dying to know what kind of question you can only ask when you're alone with the opposite sex."
There was a strange mix of jealousy and curiosity in Sujung's words. I swallowed dryly. Hyung brought the wine glass to his lips, took a slow sip, and then asked his question in a languid voice.
"Junseok. You know, when you were alone in the living room with Jian earlier for that consultation."
He paused for a moment, piercing me with eyes that seemed to see right through my insides.
"You said you confessed things you could never say in front of our sister-in-law. So be honest. When your eyes met Jian's during that consultation, did you ever feel a thrill so strong that you thought, 'It would be dangerous to be with this woman'?"
"......!"
For a moment, it felt as if all sound in the living room had been erased. Sujung stared fixedly at my lips, waiting for my answer.
Directly across from me, the person in question—Jian unnie—rested her chin on her hand, looking like she was dying of enjoyment at this situation. She lightly licked her lips with the tip of her tongue over the rim of her wine glass, then smiled faintly as if checking Sujung's reaction.
"Oh my... honey, that's such a naughty question. You're putting Junseok in a tough spot."
Even while pretending to help me, Jian unnie was only making the weight of that question heavier. Hyung's question pushing me to the edge of a cliff, my wife's gaze trying to pry me open, and Jian unnie's seductive smile enjoying the entire situation.
I wiped my sweat-soaked palms on my thighs and sank deeper into the turbulent waves of this drinking party, where no one was in their right mind anymore.
Seunghun hyung isn't the type to do something like this... Why is he acting this way?
My head felt as heavy as a cotton ball soaked in wine. Even as the alcohol made my mind hazy, I couldn't help but think that the questions hyung was throwing out were the kind that shouldn't be said, no matter how drunk you were.
The line.
There is a minimum boundary that must be maintained between people. Yet right now, even with my wife Sujung sitting right beside him, Seunghun hyung was trampling all over that line by talking about whether he had felt a thrill for his own wife or not, as if mocking me. But my rational mind was already too loose to deeply analyze this unpleasant feeling. The shock of learning that my wife and hyung had gone out together, combined with the strong liquor I had repeatedly downed in a short time, was paralyzing my brain cells one by one through my bloodstream. My thought circuits kept shorting out, and it felt like my normal judgment had ebbed away like the tide.
I looked around with unsteady eyes. But I wasn't the only one who had lost their mind. Sujung staring at me with a flushed red face, and Jian unnie toying with her wine glass while smiling seductively. All four people in the living room had blurry eyes, already drenched in their own desires and intoxication.
"Then... hyung, when you went out with Sujung earlier, did you feel thril—"
Driven by a surge of rebellious spirit, I unconsciously spat the words toward hyung. It was a resentful feeling that I couldn't just take it all one-sidedly. But before I could finish, hyung cut me off with a light, cheerful gesture.
"Eh-hey! Junseok, you can only ask questions when you have the right to pick someone! Ah, but Jian already took her turn, didn't she? Haha. You can do it on your next turn, our Junseok."
Hyung smoothly deflected my attack and shook his glass with perfect composure. The look in his eyes, full of the seasoned control of a 34-year-old, was now persistently waiting only for my answer.
I swallowed hard under the gaze I could feel from Sujung beside me. My wife said nothing, but she was gripping my arm tightly, looking up at me. That look resembled less the trust of a wife toward her husband and more the desperate curiosity of a child dying to open a forbidden box. Could she really be hoping to hear the words "I felt thrilled" come from my mouth? The moment I saw the strange excitement and anxiety intersecting in her moist, glistening eyes, my heart pounded even harder.
Hyung's sly interruption and my wife's persistent silence. Caught between them, I rubbed my sweat-drenched palms on my thighs. If I avoided answering and took the penalty drink, it would be the same as admitting hyung's question was true. But denying it was difficult with Jian unnie's strange, alluring smile constantly clouding my vision.
On this night when intoxication was rushing toward its limit, the 'line' we were supposed to maintain had already melted away in the alcohol, becoming blurry and indistinct. Trapped between three pairs of eyes staring holes through me, I listened to my wildly pounding heartbeat and moistened my burning lips. Everyone's gaze was fixed on me. The three pairs of eyes waiting for my answer glistened under the living room lights. Unable to endure that suffocating pressure, I snatched the wine glass in front of me instead of answering. The strong 20-proof liquor burned hot as it slid down my throat.
Clack.
The moment I roughly set the empty glass down on the marble table, I stared intently at Sujung beside me and spat out in a sunken voice.
"Sujung. After we got married... have you ever kissed someone else?"
It was a desperate defense mechanism, refusing to allow any interrogation or criticism for dodging the question I had just received with a penalty drink. At my unexpected counterattack, a cold silence fell over the living room for a moment.
"Oh, Im Junseok! You're in a hurry! Attacking instead of answering? This game is getting way too hot, lololol!"
Seunghun hyung tried to lighten the mood with some banter, but there was a strange thorn hidden at the end of his words. My nerves, however, were entirely focused on Sujung sitting beside me.
The look in Sujung's eyes as she stared at me was visibly shaking. It seemed she had already confirmed from the fact that I chose to drink the penalty instead of firmly saying "No" that I had been shaken by Jian unnie. The expectation in her eyes instantly twisted into deep disappointment.
"Yeah... unnie is obviously incredibly attractive, so..."
Sujung murmured in a low voice loud enough for everyone to hear. I couldn't tell if it was self-reproach or criticism toward me; her tone had a strange, bitter edge. With trembling hands, she picked up the wine bottle and poured a full third of it into her glass before downing it without hesitation. Watching her slender throat move dramatically, I felt a sudden bewilderment at myself for having asked my wife such a question.
But the surprise didn't end there. After drinking the penalty, Sujung set her glass down, lifted her flushed red face, and glared at Jian unnie sitting diagonally across from her. The bright, innocent look from before was gone; her eyes were now filled with a poisonous, drunken intensity.
"Then it's my turn now."
Sujung smiled with deep meaning as she stared directly at Jian unnie. The air in the living room felt frozen solid, as if it might shatter sharply at any moment.
"Unnie. After you got married... have you ever kissed another man?"
"......!"
The exact same question, reflected back like a mirror. The sentence that came from Sujung's lips was far sharper and more blatant than the one Jian unnie had asked. I was so shocked by my wife's sudden action that it felt like my heart had stopped.
Jian unnie, the target of the question, narrowed her eyes slightly at Sujung's unexpected provocation. But she quickly regained her composed smile and slowly traced the rim of her wine glass with her finger. Her gaze brushed past me for the briefest instant.
The hot taste of saliva we had shared in the living room just moments ago, and this cruel truth game unfolding right in front of my wife. Listening to my heart pounding as if it would burst, I instinctively realized that this drinking session had gone beyond simple entertainment and was now racing toward a cliff that could destroy all of our families.
What answer would Jian unnie give to my wife's provocation? And where would the aftermath of that answer take us? I swallowed dryly and stared blankly at Jian unnie's red lips, which gleamed seductively.
Jian unnie, who had taken the arrow of the question head-on, didn't move a muscle. Instead, as if enjoying the chilly silence, she simply traced the water droplets on her wine glass slowly with her finger. Sujung glared at Jian unnie's lips with eyes sharp as blades, and I fell into the illusion that the sound of my bursting heartbeat was echoing throughout the entire living room.
Finally, Jian unnie lifted her head and looked straight at Sujung. Her lips, stained even darker than the red wine, slowly parted.
"I...... have."
Everything in the living room froze in place. A chill ran down my spine, and I stared at Jian unnie in a daze, forgetting even how to breathe.
A single sentence. But that destructive confession shattered the precarious balance between the four of us in an instant, pushing us into an irreversible catastrophe.