Crumbling Away
“Mmngh….”
Minhi pressed the towel she was holding over my mouth and covered my eyes. Even with the bathroom light on, everything I could see was darkness.
—Rrrrip.
In the pitch black, another tearing sound reached my ears.
“If you’d just accepted me without a fight, if none of this had ever happened, if you’d taken your punishment properly—it never would have come to this.”
“Mmmph… mmmngh….”
“If you’d just taken your punishment the way I told you to, I wouldn’t have had to do any of this.”
The tearing stopped. Minhi laced my hands together and began binding them with something.
“My dear, beloved big brother… do you know how lucky I feel that I get to spend my whole life right beside you?”
“Mmmngh….”
Once my hands were tied—tight, so I couldn’t work them free—Minhi pressed a light kiss to my cheek.
—Mwah.
“I’ve thought a lot about what my life would have been like if I’d never met you. But not anymore.”
She stroked my cheek gently, her voice no longer angry—soft, almost tender, as she began to whisper.
“I’m not going to hide these feelings anymore. I don’t care if people point fingers. As long as I’m satisfied, that’s enough.”
I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even reach out and grab anything. And still Minhi kept whispering into my ear.
“I love you so much… I love you, I love you, I love you. I love you so much I could die. I love you so much I can’t live a single minute, a single second, without seeing you, Oppa.”
She circled around my face—left to right, right to left—whispering over and over that she loved me.
This wasn’t the kind of love ordinary couples whispered to each other.
Family. Siblings. Older brother and younger sister.
It was the forbidden love that people born to the same parents must never, ever want—and Minhi wanted it.
Wanted it from me.
“I love you, Oppa. I love you, Oppa. I love you, Oppa. I love you, Oppa.”
In the darkness where I could see nothing, Minhi kept whispering, slowly eating away at my mind.
“You know, back when we were in school, you asked me what my dream was, and I said I wanted to be a soldier. But not anymore♡.”
Sitting on the bathroom floor, I tried to lift my arms to stop her. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t see, but I raised my tightly bound arms, trying to pull free the towel covering my mouth and eyes—
Minhi, sitting to my left, gently pressed my arms back down.
“I’m sorry I hit you so hard, Oppa. It hurt a lot earlier, didn’t it? It’s okay now….”
Once she’d lowered my raised arms, she wrapped herself softly around me.
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Oppa. I’m right here. Don’t be afraid. Just think about me. Only me… Empty your head and think only of me. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Mmmngh….”
I didn’t understand why, after the beating, she was suddenly being so gentle. The same hands stroking my face could turn violent again at any moment—and that fear, layered over everything else, was tapping at my mind the way someone taps a carefully built tower until it starts to fall.
“Don’t think about anything… Right now it’s just you and me in this room, so think only of me. Love only me, think only of me. All that needs to be in your head is loving me.”
“Hnnngh….”
I shook my head against the whisper at my ear, but Minhi’s hand settled softly against me and soothed me—the way you’d calm someone after they’d seen something terrifying.
“It’s okay… Don’t be scared, Oppa. Just a little longer and it’ll start to feel easier.”
“Mmph—nnngh….”
I wanted to pull away, but she kept coming closer—warm hands, a low, steady voice.
“Is it hard to breathe? Just hold on a little longer. Just a little. Just a tiny bit more… Let’s stay like this a little longer.”
“Ah—nnngh… ahh….”
“I love you, Oppa. No… I love you, Yoo Junhi. I’ve been looking at you not as family, but as a man. I look only at you, think only of you, live every single day for you. So… love me back.”
That was how Minhi kept whispering love into me.
“I love you, Junhi. Tell me you love me. I’ll wait as long as it takes. So tell me you love me.”
How much time had passed…?
“My Junhi… you’re so lovely. Even like this, you’re so lovely. Just being alive makes you lovely.”
Time itself seemed to have stopped. My body wouldn’t move. And still Minhi kept whispering love into me.
I tried to push her words out of my head somehow, but every time I managed to let one of her whispers slip past, she poured several more love confessions into its place.
“Junhi Oppa, why is your body shaking like that?”
Was it because she was steadily eating away at my mind? Or was I simply cold from sitting naked on a bathroom floor for so long…?
I didn’t know.
All I wanted was to let go of everything and sleep.
Minhi stroked my face as she spoke.
“Lovely Junhi Oppa… shall we stop now?”
Stop…?
At the words that she would stop whispering love into me, I nodded on pure reflex.
—Nod, nod.
“You’re not going to do anything like that again, right? You’ll be good and listen to me from now on?”
—Nod, nod.
“Good. You’re finally starting to behave a little. You’ve reflected a lot, haven’t you?”
—Nod, nod.
Would it have been easier if she’d just hit me, or cursed me, and forced me that way?
Pain only lasts a moment. But this… this went on and on.
On and on and on and on… trapped in a body that couldn’t move, someone whispering endlessly into my ear while my eyes, my mouth, my hands were all useless….
“It’s been less than an hour since your punishment started, but… well, since you say you’ve reflected, I’ll let you off easy just this once~.”
Wh…?
L-less than an hour??
A lie… it had to be a lie… I-I’d been sure at least three hours had passed, but the fact that it had only been one hit me like a physical blow.
“If you do anything like that again, it won’t be one hour—I’ll whisper in your ear for ten hours straight. So be good from now on, Oppa~.”
The hand stroking my face reached into my mouth, caught the wad of towel, and pulled it free.
I must have been biting down on it for a long time; my jaw hung open and wouldn’t quite close, and drool spilled out.
“Ah, Oppa, you’re drooling. What a waste….”
“Uhh… ahh….”
“Is this my reward for all the hard work of punishing you? I really do have no one but you, Oppa. Slurp~♡.”
Minhi turned my head slightly and kissed me full on my open mouth.
—Slurrrp, slurp.
As if she’d been waiting for this exact moment, she kissed me and slid her tongue into my mouth.
It still wasn’t quite enough…
But I could see it now—Oppa slowly starting to break.
Different from this morning. Slowly, so slowly…
I was carefully dismantling the tower he’d built so precisely, and climbing up to stand on top of the ruins.
The proof was right there: even as I kissed him, he didn’t pull his tongue away. He simply took it.
Hooo… I want to fuck him right now. I want that cock of his to tear through my hymen♡.
But I had to hold back as much as I could.
Originally I’d planned to find him and condition him slowly, but Oppa had shown up at the house out of nowhere.
My plan had gone a little off track—but it didn’t matter….
He’d arrived at the perfect moment, and now I could take my Oppa however I wanted. That was more than enough♡.
So cute♡.
When I poked the roof of his mouth with my tongue and he flinched—absolutely adorable♡.
The big brother who used to hold my hand and take me out to play when we were little was now this♡ lovely♡.
“Hnn….”
He made a sound that wasn’t a man’s moan at all—something a woman would make.
If I’d been born a man and Oppa a woman, I would have gotten him pregnant on the spot. Such a shame♡.
But it’s fine. From now on, I’ll train him slowly♡.
When the kiss ended, Minhi untied my hands.
For some reason, she left the towel over my eyes alone.
“Okay, Oppa. Can you stand?”
“Y-yeah… I can stand….”
Maybe it was from kneeling on the cold floor for so long—my legs were shaking hard. They trembled so badly I nearly fell, but Minhi caught me.
“Careful, Oppa. If you fall here you’ll get hurt badly. Lean on me.”
“Okay. S-sorry, Minhi….”
She supported my collapsing body and sat me down on the chair that had been in the corner of the bathroom earlier.
“There’s still stuff on you from when you masturbated earlier, and your body’s cold—so I’ll wash you myself, piece by piece. Oppa.”
“Okay….”
I could have washed myself, but I deliberately didn’t say so. If staying quiet got me even halfway through this, I’d take it. I left my body to Minhi.
—Shhhhhhh~~
She turned on the shower and seemed to be waiting for the water to warm.
“M-Minhi….”
“What is it, Oppa?”
“Th-this… take it off….”
I pointed at the towel covering my eyes.
“Take it off?”
“Yeah… take it off.”
“Hmmm… I don’t want to.”
“Whyyy….”
She pretended to think for a moment, then refused.
“Because if you can’t see anything, you can’t do anything by yourself, can you?”
“Ah….”
“What? You don’t like it? I can do anything for you in place of those eyes that can’t see—and you don’t want that?”
The gentle voice from earlier had edged into something almost angry.
“Do you not like it when I do things for you?”
“N-no….”
“You don’t, right? Right? You like it when I do everything for you because you can’t see. Don’t you?”
“Yeah….”
I was exhausted by all of it.
The carefully built tower inside my heart was starting to crack, a tiny hole opening in its side.