The Thread That Holds My Reason
On the surface, my daily life was peaceful.
Compared to the wreck I'd become after my sister went missing, it was practically heaven.
But if you looked closely beneath the calm ripples of that everyday routine, an unease lurked there that no one else could see.
"Oppa, how about this outfit? Think it'd look good on me?"
I was sitting on the living room sofa after dinner when Jia sidled up next to me, holding out her phone, her body pressing naturally against mine.
The screen showed the clothes she was planning to wear, but that wasn't the important part.
One of her hands had come to rest, ever so casually, on my thigh, and as she pressed close, I could feel a woman's scent and body heat radiating off her.
When I lowered my gaze to look at the screen, the height difference meant her loose top gaped open, and I could just make out something soft and bare beneath the collar.
With Mom home, she wasn't as brazen as before, but there was no way I couldn't recognize these gestures for what they were — calculated to provoke me.
For me, desperately trying to forget what had happened with my sister — the night I'd… had my first time — it was an unbearable temptation.
Heh.
Jia glanced up at me with narrowed eyes as I floundered under the onslaught of sensation, a foxlike smile curling across her lips.
That wicked smile made anger surge up in me, but with no way to fight back, all I felt was frustration.
On the surface, there was nothing strange about Jia's behavior — if anything, I was the one who'd be misunderstood for reading a sister's affectionate gestures the wrong way.
What made it worse was that the demon, sharp as she was, never did anything I genuinely hated.
Part of me denied it, but every time, another version of me inside pushed back.
Do you really hate it?
If so, why haven't you told the demon you hate it?
"You two are always so close."
Mom, washing dishes in the kitchen, was watching us fondly as we sat side by side on the sofa, pressed together and chatting.
She only had my back in view, so she couldn't see Jia's hand stroking my thigh like she was teasing a cat.
And because of that, she also couldn't see what was already fully grown beneath my underwear.
"Yeah, I love Oppa. Of course, I love you too, Mom!"
When Jia turned her head and shouted in a voice dripping with aegyo, Mom broke into a wide, happy smile.
Every time I saw Mom's face, lost in happiness like that, my feelings tangled into something complicated.
"What I love most is you. More precious to me than my own life — the most important existence in this world."
The demon whispered in a voice pitched so only I could hear.
Shh—
Just as I was about to say something, the demon pressed a finger to her nose.
She kept talking in that hushed, secretive voice.
"My door is always open. Not just my room… this side too."
Swish…
When she hooked a finger into the hem of her dolphin pants and pulled it aside, my sister's most private place was exposed once again.
Her lips parted in a gasp, and the bare flesh beneath was drenched, slick with sticky arousal.
"If it's too much pressure, you can just pounce on me while I'm sleeping. If you like that kind of thing, I'll stay asleep. And while I do, you can use this body however's comfortable for you. Using it as a vessel to take your desires — you're welcome to that anytime."
Leaving those words hanging in the air, the demon slipped off to her room.
Watching her retreating figure, tail seemingly swaying, I bit down hard on my lip.
I have to hold it in… I have to, hold it in…
The life that seemed peaceful but wasn't followed me to university, too.
"You know that freshman girl I mentioned a few days ago… she's apparently some celebrity who was on TV once?"
Before lecture started, Seohyun, sitting beside me, asked in a voice meant only for my ears.
The questions probing about Jia — or about the relationship between me and Jia — were getting bolder by the day.
Her open hints that she knew something about me and Jia had long since crossed the line where they could be passed off as jokes.
Blackmail?
To what end?
That's what I thought at first, but even knowing her intent, there was nothing I could actually do about it.
"Really? Was she a model or something?"
Playing dumb like this was all I had.
Every time I feigned ignorance, Seohyun gave a sneering little laugh, and that laugh stoked my irritation and anger.
Why is this woman like this?
What does she want, pulling this shit on me?
Don't tell me… she knew about me and Jia from the start, and approached me on purpose?
Frustration welled up, but Seohyun's relationships with everyone around us were far too smooth for me to just ignore her or cast her out of the group.
"Oppa, are you okay? You look a little off…"
When Hanbyeol's voice pulled me out of my brooding, I snapped back to attention and managed an evasive smile.
"Haha… next period's with that professor, so I'm already feeling worn out."
"Ah, yeah, that professor really is boring…"
Hanbyeol pressed her hands together and nodded along vigorously in sympathy.
Receiving that gentle understanding felt like it was healing the emotions piling up inside me — but unfortunately, it didn't last long.
Tap.
[Follow me after class.]
Reading the message that had appeared, I rolled my eyes sideways — and my gaze met Seohyun's. She gave me a knowing smirk, then went back to chatting with the others.
At the same time, I caught another gaze flickering between the crowd — Ryeonhwa, who always watched me carefully in the lecture hall.
Unlike before, Ryeonhwa was cold — cold enough to send a chill down my spine.
Seeing her sudden change in demeanor, I instinctively knew something had shifted, but with no way to know why, it only deepened my unease.
The demon's temptations at home.
Seohyun's provocations.
Ryeonhwa's unreadable gaze.
All of it played out in secret, visible only within the web of relationships between them and me.
Creak.
I could feel the single thread barely holding my sanity together in my mind stretching tighter and tighter.
"What's going on?"
"Teasing you while testing the waters stopped being fun, so. Yoon Jia… that's your sister, right?"
On the rooftop floor, the only place where no one else would come, Seohyun leaned against the railing and held out her phone screen for me to see.
On it was a news article, with Jia's face displayed alongside it.
And in one corner of the screen — my face and Mom's, sobbing over the loss of our daughter and sister.
So it's out…
With no reason left to keep up the act, I let out the breath I'd been holding deep inside.
"Whew… so? What about it? What's your point?"
She was hiding something, but she couldn't possibly know the real reason Jia's existence had to stay buried.
The feelings I held for Jia…
"You have an inferiority complex about your sister, don't you? That's why you hate the idea of it getting out that she goes to the same university as you."
Seohyun crossed her arms and spoke in a mocking tone, as if sneering at me.
"…What are you talking about?"
Her words had struck dead-on the thoughts I'd kept buried, and holding back the cry that threatened to burst out of me, asking was the best I could manage.
"That person told me. Aah… that person is truly amazing. A truly perfect being! I just… I only need that person… whatever they command…"
Whether I wavered or not, Seohyun wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered.
Her face flushed as if in ecstasy, her lips loosening into a dreamy smile like a girl drunk on love.
That person?
The words made no sense, but I could tell this wasn't some misunderstanding Seohyun had stumbled into.
"You don't want the rumors spreading, right? Hate the idea of the whole university finding out Jia's your sister?"
Watching Seohyun sneer with that smile on her face, anger rose in my throat on its own.
"What do you want?"
"What he wants is what I want. Which means… how about kneeling, Dohyun?"
"…What?"
When I balked at the sudden command, Seohyun's smiling face changed as if by magic, and she said flatly:
"Kneel."
That imperious tone.
It felt like she'd become a completely different person in an instant.
Realizing this was no joke, no slip of the tongue, I watched Seohyun wave the phone with my sister's article on it.
Grit.
I clenched my teeth and swallowed my rage.
And then, slowly, for the first time in my life, I lowered myself to my knees before someone.
Is this really how far I have to go? the question rose in me.
But the moment I remembered the miserable life of being compared to my sister for decades, the hesitation vanished.
That was how profound the impact of having a sister named Yoon Jia had been on my life.
"Good. Aah… I love that expression. That look of anguish and rising fury… like you're headed toward ruin. That expression, those eyes, and… those emotions. I can't wait… to offer them to him…!"
Looking down at me as I knelt there trembling with humiliation, Seohyun kept spouting nothing but incomprehensible nonsense.
Her face was still flushed with excitement, her body quivering.
My hands, clenched on top of my knees, shook with rage.
Anger… irritation, stress, all of it boiling up until I felt like I would burst.
The taut thread in my mind was fraying, on the verge of snapping.
"Look up."
Ptui!
Drip…
Unable to refuse the command, I raised my head — and hot liquid splashed directly onto my face.
Feeling the thick, viscous fluid slide down my cheek, the whole situation felt surreal.
Then the unreality flipped into reality, and a dark, murky emotion surged up in proportion to everything I'd been feeling.
"Pathetic bastard."
Was this sadistic smile the side of Seohyun she'd always hidden from others — or was it because of that "person" she'd spoken of?
Either way, I no longer had any reason to hold my rage back.
"Masturbate."
"……??"
"Masturbate. Right here, in front of me."
Heh heh.
Laughter steeped in contempt and mockery burst out between the smirking lips of Seohyun.
This fucking bitch…
My mind seethed and boiled over.
My body grew hot, my breathing ragged.
I can't take this… no. I'm done holding back.
"Don't worry, I'll throw in a daughter for you."
Seohyun kicked off her shoes and stretched out her slender legs wrapped in black stockings, playfully prodding my crotch with her toe.
"Or… want to jerk off to your sister's pictures?"
Waving the photo of Jia on her phone, she lit the fuse.
Crack…
I couldn't take it anymore — I started to rise from where I knelt, ready to explode.
For some reason, my shadow shuddered once, like static-distorted static on a screen — but swept up in the violent emotion, I paid it no mind.
"F—"
As I tried to detonate the tension that had stretched to its limit, something began to swell out of my shadow, as if about to burst forth.
I had a premonition that the moment the curse tore fully out of my mouth, something terrible would happen — but my reason, ruled by emotion, had no intention of hitting the brakes.
Step…
That moment.
The sound of someone climbing the stairs reached us, and my reason snapped back into place.
Seohyun must have heard the footsteps too; she furrowed her brow and straightened her posture.
[What a shame.]
I thought I heard a low, regretful voice from somewhere, but with my attention fixed on the footsteps climbing the stairs, I didn't dwell on it.