The Master Bedroom Door Closes
The master bedroom door had closed...
“Hahaha, ah… Got me again! Just kidding! Sujung, did you see your sister’s face? You really thought I was serious, didn’t you?”
In an instant, the razor-sharp tension that felt ready to explode dissolved in a single breath with Jian’s laughter. She wiped the wine from the corner of her mouth with a casual swipe of her finger and laughed as though nothing had happened. Her playful demeanor made the chilling, obscene declaration from moments earlier seem like nothing more than drunken nonsense. Yet the toes still pinning my calf beneath the table made it unmistakably clear that none of it had been a joke.
“But Junseok, your eyes are practically glued shut. You look like you could pass out any second.”
Jian was right. These days I had a habit of blacking out the moment alcohol hit me, so I should have already been sprawled unconscious on the sofa. But the dopamine flooding my system was forcibly anchoring my awareness. My wife’s confession, Seunghun’s filthy jokes, and the insistent pressure of Jian’s toes against my leg—those stimuli kept shoving the drowsiness back down.
“Junseok, if you keep drinking you’ll really pass out. That won’t do. From the next round on, whenever it’s your turn, I’ll take the black rose for you. Okay?”
Jian swirled her glass lightly as she offered. Seunghun chuckled in agreement, clearly pleased with the idea.
“Whoa, Kim Jian, since when are you so generous? Still, Im Junseok really did look like he was about to drop earlier. Sujung, Jian’s offering to cover for him. You good with that? If he drinks like he did at the camping ground last time and just passes out, it’ll kill the whole vibe. Haha.”
Camping ground. The instant the word left Seunghun’s mouth, my heart plummeted. Sujung’s face was still flushed, but the lighthearted atmosphere between her husband and sister seemed to ease her. She gave an awkward nod.
“Ah… yes… haha. If sister doesn’t mind. Oppa really has had a lot tonight.”
The moment my wife consented, Jian’s toes pressed down hard on my calf again. A secret signal, delivered right in front of Sujung and Seunghun, that she would take control of me under the innocent pretext of drinking in my place. I forced my heavy eyelids open and tightened my grip on the glass. In a mind muddied by sleep, lust, and suspicion, I now had to accept the dangerous lifeline Jian offered while avoiding my wife’s eyes. The coming ruin was tightening its noose around me with exquisite precision.
—
“Junseok, you’re caught! Oh no, this one’s a full shot.”
Jian’s languid voice slipped through the fog of my consciousness. My glass on the table was already brimming with wine, and both Sujung and Seunghun were staring at me. But I had reached my limit. My fingertips trembled as I tried to grasp the glass; my eyelids felt weighted with lead.
At that moment Jian smiled sweetly and snatched the glass away.
“It really looks like Junseok will pass out if he drinks any more, so I’ll take the black rose this time.”
Right in front of everyone, Jian brought my glass to her lips. Her throat moved with elegant smoothness as she swallowed the deep red wine. When the glass was empty she licked the last drop from her mouth and gazed straight at me.
“Now it’s time to grant the black rose wish. Hmm… I want a deep, heartfelt hug. I’m curious how it would feel to be held by handsome young bachelor Junseok after two whole years of abstinence. Haha. Oppa, Sujung, it’s just a drinking-game joke, so this much is fine, right? Haha.”
“Ooh, Kim Jian, you’re really going for the throat! Hey, Im Junseok, you lucky bastard. Sujung, when your sister comes on this strong how can you possibly stop her? Just say yes! Haha.”
Whether the alcohol had dulled his judgment or he was simply savoring the situation, Seunghun laughed along. Sujung’s eyes darted around in confusion before she finally forced an awkward smile and nodded.
“Ah… yes… haha. If sister is okay with it…”
The instant my wife gave permission, Jian rose and walked straight to me. A dizzying scent—thick wine and warm body heat—washed over me. Without hesitation she slid both arms around my neck and pressed her body flush against mine.
“……!”
She couldn’t compare to my glamorous wife Sujung, yet the solid weight of Jian’s B-cup breasts molded perfectly against my chest through our clothes. The resilient bounce of that modest volume combined with her scorching body heat short-circuited my brain. The dopamine I had been desperately suppressing detonated.
Behind my back, where Sujung and Seunghun couldn’t see, Jian’s hands slid down and stroked firmly along my waist. Then she pressed her lips to my ear and whispered in a trembling voice meant for me alone.
“Junseok… why is your heart racing like this? Because you’ve held back for two years… or because you can feel my body against you right now?”
I stopped breathing. But Jian’s provocation had only begun. She buried her nose against my neck and tore my mind open even more blatantly.
“Can you feel it, Junseok? I’m so turned on right now… it feels like my nipples are getting hard… haha.”
That shameless whisper drilling into my ear sent my mind reeling. At the same time I could clearly feel her stiffened nipples scraping lightly across my chest through the thin fabric.
Sujung is right beside us. Seunghun is watching.
Jian leaned back as if to pull away, but used the motion to crush her breasts even harder against me before slowly separating. Without realizing it, my fingers tightened around her narrow waist. The soft, yielding flesh beneath my palms flooded me with insane guilt.
“Junseok, come back to your senses. Haha.”
Jian gave my shoulder a light push and returned to her seat. I curled forward to hide my throbbing lower body, my hand around the glass shaking violently. Seunghun, who had watched the entire scene, burst out laughing.
“Hey, Im Junseok. What’s with that face? You look completely gone. Was my wife’s hug really that powerful?”
He was only teasing, yet every word twisted the guilt and desire inside me into something grotesque. Jian toyed with her wine glass as if nothing had happened, but the gaze she sent my way was far darker and wetter than before.
Then Sujung, who had been silently observing us, spoke in a low, heavy voice.
“Oppa, you’re enjoying this way too much. Did sister’s hug wake you right up?”
Her stare stabbed into my face. The usual obedient wife was gone; her eyes brimmed with unmistakable jealousy and suspicion.
“Uh…? No, it’s not that… I was just startled when she suddenly hugged me…”
When I stammered, Sujung took a large swallow of wine instead of answering. Then she fixed Jian with a pointed look and added,
“Sister, my oppa has always been weak to this kind of skinship. But today I’m seeing sides of him I never knew existed.”
At my wife’s barbed remark the temperature in the living room plummeted. Jian, however, smiled with relaxed amusement and answered,
“Oh dear, Sujung. Are you jealous? I keep telling you it was just a joke. Haha. Isn’t that right, Junseok?”
Jian gave me a tiny wink. Caught dead center between the silent battle of wills between my wife and Jian, I clutched my pounding heart and swallowed hard.
After that, Jian’s growing boldness, my drunk wife’s veiled jealousy, and the crushing guilt over that intense kiss I had shared with Jian outside the bathroom all crashed over me like waves.
Conflicting emotions churned violently inside my skull. I stopped giving Jian any chance to play the “black rose” for me. Instead, as if trying to escape, I rapidly downed every penalty drink in front of me. I prayed the harsh alcohol burning down my throat would at least dampen this unbearable tension.
“Whoa, Im Junseok! You’re on fire tonight! Keep going, keep going!”
Seunghun’s applause, Jian’s enigmatic smile, and Sujung’s chilly, intoxicated gaze all collided. The overheated atmosphere had pushed all four of us to the brink of total intoxication. The living room reeked of alcohol and suppressed instinct, and my vision was beginning to blur.
That was the last thing I remembered from the drinking party.
From that point on, only fragmented, violent memories remained—beginning in the darkness on the sofa.
“Brother-in-law… You do it that often with her… so why haven’t you had a baby yet? Are you… using protection?”
What dragged me from my drunken stupor on the sofa was Sujung’s voice slicing into my ear. The sticky, slurred pronunciation soaked in liquor and the bizarre question so unlike her usual primness stabbed my brain like an ice pick.
Immediately after came a savage wave of nausea. Instinctively I sat up as my stomach flipped. There was no time to reach the living-room bathroom. The only thing burned into my mind was the location of the master bathroom Seunghun had shown me earlier. I staggered along the wall and shoved open the master bedroom door.
Beneath the faint light I caught a glimpse of Jian already stretched out on the bed, apparently asleep. I had no mental energy to dwell on it. Clamping down on what was about to erupt, I bolted into the master bathroom.
I clung to the toilet and vomited for what felt like forever. Only after emptying even the bile did the crushing dizziness ease slightly. I wiped my mouth, opened the bathroom door, and immediately collapsed again, crumpling like discarded trash in a corner of the master bedroom.
My mind drifted once more. Through half-closed eyes, the thin beam of living-room light slipping through the door crack was the only thing illuminating the floor—the sole anchor I had inside the room.
Then it happened.
Someone approached the master bedroom door from the living room. A silhouette—impossible to tell whether it was Seunghun or Sujung—paused at the threshold. And then, very slowly, the door began to close.
The strip of light that had stretched across the floor narrowed, thinner and thinner, until a soft click cut it off completely.
Perfect darkness. Jian asleep in the same space as me. The faint, dreamy laughter drifting from beyond the closed door…
With that eerie silence as the final thread, my consciousness sank once more into a deep, black swamp.