Call Me a Demon
"Last night in the early hours, a woman in her twenties was reportedly gang-raped by homeless men beneath an underpass in Yongsan District, sending shockwaves through the community. However, the woman insists it was not assault but consensual intercourse, and police are currently conducting a thorough investigation into the facts…"
Picking absently at my breakfast, I listened to the morning news drifting from the living room TV and thought about how quiet the house felt with Mom away on business until tonight.
"There really are all kinds of strange things in this world. Consensual intercourse? With homeless men? Do you think they threatened her or something?"
Jia, my little sister, who sat across from me eating, had followed my gaze to the news and tilted her head in puzzlement.
Looking at her calm, untroubled face — as if nothing had happened at all — yesterday began to feel like a dream.
My first time.
The fact that it had been with my own sister, and the memory of that sister — the one I'd been filled with longing and resentment for — clinging to me in tears, still wouldn't leave my head.
Whenever I recalled the face of that perfect being, broken and weeping, begging me for more, blood began rushing downward.
I wanted to see that face again.
I wanted to wreck it.
I wanted to take her, ruin her completely — and that urge kept surging up.
"What's wrong, Oppa?"
Lost in that tangle of emotions, I was startled by Jia's soft, gentle voice.
Thump…
My heart suddenly kicked, and I flustered.
Was this heartbeat from lust, or…
The moment the thought threatened to go further, I slammed the brakes on. I couldn't let it cross that line.
"N-nothing…"
Jia looked at me in silence for a moment, then broke into a wide smile.
Shhht.
"Ugh!"
The instant I felt something brush against my crotch, my gaze dropped reflexively.
Beneath the table, one of Jia's feet — wrapped in black stockings — was rubbing against my groin.
As her leg stretched out, the hem of her skirt had ridden up, and white panties encased in stockings peeked out, whether she meant me to see or not.
"Again."
Jia looked at me with sultry eyes.
"Did looking at me make you want to ravish me again? Make a mess of me like you did yesterday? Hm, Oppa?"
Her sticky, honeyed whisper coiled around me, and the foot at my crotch kept up its slow, insistent friction — shhht, shhht — teasing out the arousal that was already flooding through me until it ached.
"Do whatever you want with me."
Sliide…
She slid her collar aside, revealing a frilled, pure-white bra — exactly the kind of lingerie that hit my tastes dead center. And she didn't stop there: she slipped a finger into the gap of the bra and lifted it, letting me glimpse the soft swell of the breast hidden inside.
"I'm yours, so you can play with me however you like, whenever you like. I'm your toy, your possession. Yours alone."
The demon wearing Jia's face slowly licked her lips with her tongue.
Faced with a temptation I could hardly refuse, I realized all over again that yesterday hadn't been a dream. My blood boiled and my body burned hot.
Ravish me.
Ruin me completely.
Take the desires you're hiding right now and dump them on me like trash from a bin — irresponsibly, every last drop.
I never said it aloud, but the demon's eyes as they watched me seemed to whisper exactly those words.
"I…"
Gulp.
A delicious pleasure shimmered right in front of me, close enough to seize if I only reached out my hand — and my throat bobbed violently.
I stared at my sister, at the demon, with trembling eyes as the conflict rose inside me.
Reason and instinct tangled and collided, whirling me into confusion, until I barely managed to force out a decision.
"I-I've gotta go!"
I grabbed my bag and scrambled up from my seat, and the warmth that had been toying with my crotch slid away.
Jia showed her disappointment openly, pouting for a moment — then, just as quickly, her face brightened into her usual sunny smile.
"Okay, Oppa. See you later~"
Leaving Jia behind, waving with a meaningful little smile, I practically fled the house and headed for the university.
"Good morning, Dohyun."
Siwoo dropped into the seat beside me with a greeting.
"Morning."
I answered with a trace of fatigue in my voice, and Siwoo gave me an odd look before breaking into a mischievous grin.
"Rough night? You've got the face of a guy who got his essence drained by a succubus."
"Haha…"
While I laughed drily, secretly stung, the familiar faces began filing into the lecture hall.
"Hey, Oppa."
"Morning."
"Hey, Hanbyeol. Morning, Seohyeon."
"Good morning."
Hanbyeol and Seohyeon greeted Siwoo and me, and we returned the hellos warmly.
"Wow, unnie, where'd you get that tint? It's gorgeous."
"This? It's Chanel."
"What? That's a luxury brand! No wonder it looked so pretty!"
The two of them sat down side by side in front of us and launched into girlish chatter.
Watching them gossip together so cozily after barely a day, I couldn't help marveling at how quickly women bond.
"She's better than her first impression, but honestly? I still don't like her."
When Siwoo said it while glancing at Seohyeon, I understood exactly what he meant and answered with a noncommittal smile — neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
Talking with Siwoo was strangely easy.
Honest and easygoing, Siwoo conversed as directly as any guy, and it felt like we'd known each other for years — no awkwardness at all.
For a fleeting moment, I thought that if I ever got married, a wife with that kind of personality might actually put my heart at ease.
Beep.
In the middle of my idle chatter with Siwoo, my phone chimed. I checked the screen and saw a private message from Hanbyeol.
Her mention of last night brought back the memory of the demon wearing Hanbyeol's form, baring its most intimate places to me — and of the depraved, unethical things I'd said to it in that shape.
As the thing below me threatened to rise again, I hammered at the screen to distract myself.
When she mentioned the girl Jia had introduced to me in that alley, my heart dropped like a stone. I fumbled for something neutral to say.
"Oh."
Before the message could be finished and sent, Seohyeon suddenly turned around, as if something had just occurred to her.
"You know an insanely pretty girl just enrolled among the freshmen this year?"
There was no telling who the remark was aimed at — but her eyes were aimed unmistakably at me.
In that meaningful smile of hers, I caught something suspicious, something probing.
Siwoo, who'd heard the same thing yesterday, answered first.
"I saw her too. She was seriously pretty. Her name was… Yoon Jia, was it?"
"Huh? She has the same last name as you, Oppa?"
As Hanbyeol tilted her head, it felt like a single bead of cold sweat was trickling all the way down my spine.
Hanbyeol didn't yet know that the girl Seohyeon was talking about was the Jia I'd met yesterday.
Watching me go rigid, Seohyeon smiled even more deeply.
"Wow~ Same last name as Dohyun, huh? What a wild coincidence. What do you think, Dohyun?"
I fixed my expression and managed an easy laugh.
"Funny, huh? Yoon isn't even that common a surname."
When I brushed it off so casually, Seohyeon's face took on a look of faint disappointment.
Fortunately, the conversation drifted elsewhere — but from the way she watched me, I could tell she'd known something before she ever opened her mouth.
Of course… does she know about me and Jia?
The fact that we were brother and sister wasn't the problem in itself.
I just couldn't stand the looks and the assumptions that would follow if it ever came out.
I'd even thought about asking the demon for help — but the idea of letting things escalate that far just to erase my own feelings disgusted me more.
When the professor entered the lecture hall, the conversation died a natural death, but what nagged at me was the last thing Seohyeon did: that final meaningful smile, aimed straight at me.
And the gaze, from somewhere in the corner of the hall, that had settled on me and the people around me before I'd even noticed.
Ryeonhwa.
She — the one who stood against demons — was observing me with the eyes of a predator tracking its prey.
Two presences, both getting under my skin. Irritation prickled up, and I felt a murky, black resentment rising in my chest.
When Seohyeon first saw Dohyun, she'd thought his face looked familiar.
It wouldn't come to her at first, but once she went home and turned it over in her mind, the memory surfaced.
Several years ago — the face that had appeared on TV and in internet articles, all in the search for a missing younger sister.
Truthfully, it was the sister's face, more than Dohyun's, that had left the deeper impression and made her remember the case at all — and Dohyun's face had naturally resurfaced along with it.
When Seohyeon returned to school this term, she was certain every eye would be on her.
She'd expected to live as someone with real standing — if not across the whole university, then at least within her department.
It wasn't vanity or arrogance.
It was well-founded confidence.
Objectively speaking, she was beautiful, and the life she'd lived backed that confidence up.
But on her first day back, when she saw the freshman classroom buzzing, that lofty confidence of hers was snapped clean in two.
Yoon Jia.
That was the name of the new student who'd just entered as a freshman.
She was the kind of woman whose beauty forced the words out of your mouth — even another woman thought so; anyone would think so.
And it wasn't just her looks. The aura she carried was noble and refined, like the daughter of a chaebol family, and her face was always full of a gentle, self-assured smile.
Seohyeon couldn't help comparing herself to Yoon Jia, and the conclusion was obvious before she even finished the thought: she would be eclipsed.
By the time she'd walked into that classroom — jealousy over the girl's looks gnawing at her, sinking into an inferiority complex — she'd been seething with spite.
It was in the middle of that stew that the memory came back to her, and she realized: Dohyun and Jia were siblings.
Amusingly, Dohyun had denied his sister's existence.
Why?
It was a fair question, and at the very least it told her one thing: there was something he wanted to hide.
Dig deep enough, and she might just find herself a useful weakness.
But she wasn't cruel enough to seize that weakness, shake it loose, and drag a being like Yoon Jia to ruin — or break Dohyun outright.
She wasn't so stupid that she didn't know how badly that kind of ending tended to turn out.
Just simple venting.
Or a wicked little prank to make them squirm, nothing more.
Her plan was to pick at the two of them, needle them a little, all while skating right along the border without crossing over the island.
"What a delicious smell. I'm so glad I followed the dream I had last night. Although… what a shame."
Seohyeon was walking along, beaming as she imagined the pair of them flustered, when she caught a man's low murmur as he brushed past her.
Perhaps it was because she and the man were the only ones in that dim alley, lit only by the glow of a streetlamp, but that single muttered phrase sent a chill crawling up her spine.
When Seohyeon whirled around in alarm, she saw that the man who'd passed her had already stopped and was looking straight at her.
"You look happy. Something good happen?"
He asked it with a warm, pleasant smile.
Alone with a stranger in a dark alley, out of nowhere asked about her mood — anyone would normally feel wariness and unease.
Seohyeon was no different, but the man's striking looks and kindly face dissolved the appropriate caution before she knew it.
Is this some new pick-up trick…?
In an instant, thanks to nothing but a handsome face, her mental label for him flipped from potential criminal to hot guy hitting on me.
"Ah, yes, well…"
Seohyeon swept a strand of hair behind her ear, sizing him up.
The man looked at her and flashed another fresh, easy smile.
"I'd love to hear about that happy thing of yours… would you have time?"
Thump…
Watching him ask so courteously, Seohyeon felt her heart flutter.
Thanks to her own beauty, she'd dated more than her share of decent-looking men and was well immunized against a pretty face — but this man felt different.
Yes, the feeling was… different.
Like sinking into sleep, she grew hazy and lightheaded, and the flutter he stirred in her kept swelling.
As that inexplicable warmth toward him grew, a feeling rose up in her that she could do anything for this man — anything at all.
"Yes… but… what's your name… handsome?"
Her face had gone soft and giddy, and she found herself wanting to know everything about him.
"Unfortunately, I haven't yet earned an epithet. So just…"
The man smiled, took her hand in his, and began to lead her somewhere as he answered.
"Call me a demon."
A demon?
She assumed, of course, that it was a joke.
And besides — what would it matter if he were?
A man this handsome, this magnetic? She'd gladly hand over her very soul.
"Tell me every emotion you've been holding onto. I'll take those feelings, knead them well, and age them to perfection. And later, those feelings…"
Seohyeon was drowning in the man when she saw his eyes — beastlike — narrow into horizontal slits, sharpening into something feral.
"— you bring them and offer them to me. As my prey."
She knew the man was wrong. She knew, without a doubt, that he was something abnormal — and yet, captured, Seohyeon could no longer escape from the demon's embrace.