A Safe Tool
"...What did you just say?"
The voice that repeated the question came out ragged, almost cracked.
But Han Seoyeon just sat there on the damp bed with her legs crossed, offering no answer at all. She simply looked me over, top to bottom, taking her time.
Her gaze started at the crown of my head, slid down across my face and shoulders, and then—inevitably—traveled past my thighs all the way to my toes. Slow enough that I wondered if she really needed to drag it out that long.
The skin wherever her eyes passed felt strangely ticklish, as if a person could be caressed by sight alone. The clear, kind expression she wore on broadcasts was nowhere to be found. What she wore now was closer to the eyes of a beast picking out its prey.
"I want to have sex. With you, sunbae."
She spat it out syllable by syllable, deliberate and unhurried, then slowly ran the tip of her tongue along her lower lip. Lips wet with saliva gleamed in the dim light.
"Are you insane? This is a six-pyeong studio apartment, and you're... you're Han Seoyeon of Rozea."
"So what? Is Han Seoyeon of Rozea not allowed to sleep with a man?"
Han Seoyeon rose slowly. In a space this cramped, it was only two steps to where I stood.
"Sunbae."
One step. The old linoleum floor creaked faintly beneath her foot.
"I came straight here the second my schedule ended. I lied to my manager—told him I was meeting a friend."
And another step.
"Nobody in the world knows I'm here."
By now, every breath I drew brushed my nose against her body heat and a faint perfume. It was nothing like the clean image she radiated on screen—sweet yet faintly fishy, a scent that made my head swim in the strangest way.
And then, finally, Han Seoyeon's fingers seized the collar of my t-shirt and yanked it hard. My body lurched forward half a handspan.
No—it wasn't that I was pulled. It was that I had no presence of mind left to hold myself upright. I had never once dared to imagine that the distance between me, cast in the role of a soldier who might as well have been a folding screen, and Han Seoyeon, the center of the photo shoot, would close like this.
She pulled out her smartphone and thrust the screen toward me. Unbecoming of a top idol, it was a nearly empty chat app, bare of any contacts.
"I can't do it with any other man. I can't."
Her voice dropped low.
"I'm an idol. One scandal and it's over. Hidden cams, recordings, photos... even call logs. The moment any of that leaks, everything I have goes up in smoke. So the CEO of my agency drilled it into my ears until I wanted to scream—watch out for men. Especially the kind of males who live off their own egos."
Han Seoyeon paused for a beat and stared straight into my eyes. Her pupils trembled, if only for an instant, but her expression looked remarkably resolute.
"That's why I need you, Baek Seogeom."
"...Me?"
"You're an orphan. You're not famous, and do you even have an agency?"
Han Seoyeon rolled her eyes as if thinking it over, then immediately answered her own question.
"Of course you don't. You're living in a dump like this. You don't have a single real connection in the industry either. That's exactly why I can trust you."
I blinked at her, unable to fathom what kind of logic that was supposed to be. Han Seoyeon just went on wearing the face of someone stating the obvious.
"It means you have no reason to blackmail me or go blabbing about me somewhere. You think you've got the balls to squeeze money out of me? The club president who spent all of high school wiping up after his juniors and couldn't say a single word of complaint?"
Fuck. That's not the point right now...
Either way, it was clear she regarded me as a safe bet. And yet, strangely, every single sentence landed square in the middle of my chest.
The reason she trusted me wasn't my good character. It wasn't that I was a sunbae she'd known for years. It was just... because I had nothing to my name at all.
No. Because the only thing I did have was my dick.
I'd scratched and clawed my way through years of calling myself a struggling actor, and in the end, this was what it meant: I was nothing more than a "safe dildo, a safe tool"—someone she could come find and fuck whenever she pleased, without a moment's worry. Stripped down to the words themselves, it sounded obscene as hell, but the reality behind them wasn't sexy in the slightest.
"Even so, I... I..."
The words wouldn't come out properly.
"You what? You're going to refuse? Seriously?"
As Han Seoyeon curled the corner of her mouth and took one more step closer, my back pressed flush against the peeling wallpaper. The height difference meant she had to look up at me, but her eyes alone were those of a predator gazing down at its catch.
For a moment I wondered if I was dreaming. But the instinct of a male had already accepted reality—my heart was pounding like mad, and heat was spreading through my lower belly.
From the day I was born a man until I managed to snag this one tiny studio apartment, sex had been a luxury for me. No—dating itself had been a luxury. Paying rent and running around to auditions already left my bank account gasping for air every single month.
So I'd compromised with reality early on. A life spent dying alone with nothing but the grace of audiovisual material didn't seem like such a bad one, honestly.
And now Han Seoyeon was demolishing that pathetic little plan head-on.
"Your eyes say you can't refuse."
Han Seoyeon suddenly grabbed both edges of her unzipped hoodie and, without a flicker of hesitation, shoved it roughly down off her shoulders.
With a soft rustle, the loose hoodie caught at her elbows, revealing the thin white t-shirt beneath. At the same time, through the pale fabric, the outline of a black bra showed through with perfect clarity. Soft black curves pressed the t-shirt taut—a sight so striking that reflex alone told me I should look away.
"Be honest with yourself, sunbae. I'm so curious what it's like to sleep with a man."
"...I don't even have a condom."
Han Seoyeon's eyes went round for a moment, and then she let out a short, incredulous laugh. That laugh was, somehow, unbearably erotic.
"That's what you're worried about? Really?"
She swiftly fished a white foil wrapper out of her pocket and waved it. A condom—the kind I'd only ever seen behind the counter at the convenience store.
"I bought it, obviously. At a convenience store, with my cap pulled down low. They didn't even check my ID? I thought my heart was going to burst, worried the clerk would recognize me."
She stopped mid-sentence, twirled the condom between her fingers, and then lifted my chin with her other hand. Her nails, painted with clear polish, caught the light. Whatever traces remained of the junior who'd once smiled so brightly three years ago had evaporated—along with the last of my reason.
"Hey... are you really going to do this? You won't regret it?"
"Yes. I'm going to. Aren't you?"
Han Seoyeon pressed the condom flat against my chest, then grabbed the hem of my t-shirt with both hands and pushed it up. The moment those cold fingertips touched my stomach, my muscles contracted on their own and shuddered.
"Oh. Firmer than I expected. Do you work out too?"
"No. Just part-time jobs..."
Her fingers climbed slowly upward along the ridges of my abs. This was the fruit of all those backbreaking months hauling furniture just to survive. Back then, writhing in aches the morning after had felt purely miserable—never once did I imagine the day would come when the evidence of that labor would be appraised by Han Seoyeon's hands.
Her fingertips reached my chest, then went so far as to graze my nipple lightly with her nail.
"Just how many jobs did you work to get this hard?"
She pressed her whole body against mine. At the same time, two soft masses pushed hard against my chest through the fabric of her bra—heavy enough that our body heat mingled rapidly through the thin cloth.
"Should I take mine off too?"
"...Yeah."
There was no room left in my head to hold onto reason. Top idol or former junior, it didn't matter anymore. Right now she was simply a female who would graciously relieve me of my virginity.
Just then, Han Seoyeon narrowed her eyes into crescents, looking satisfied.
"Now we're finally speaking the same language. Should've come out like that from the start."
She hauled her t-shirt up to her collarbone and, in the same motion, reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. The black fabric slid away, leaving her two breasts bare, pale-pink nipples standing exposed in the open air.
It felt surreal—seeing with my own eyes, in the flesh, something I'd only ever watched on a screen.
"Touch them."
As if entranced, I raised my hands. It being my first time, I couldn't help but be careful.
"Your hands are so rough. Is that what laborer's hands feel like?"
Even as she complained about the roughness, she grabbed my wrists and made me squeeze harder. Soft flesh welled up between my fingers, and I could feel it in my palms—the pink tips stiffening the instant they made contact.
"You've never done this either, have you? That's why you're being so gentle."
"I'm not the type who likes it to hurt."
"How would you know that? You said you were curious what sex is like. So you've never actually done it?"
"I masturbate, obviously. What about you, sunbae? You don't even do that? Just watch porn and call it a day? God, you're pure. Me, I actually like it rough when I do it."
My throat seized up. Her mouth was simply too filthy. It was hard to believe she was the same Han Seoyeon from back then.
"On camera I bite my lip and make every sultry face there is—gasping, panting, all of it—and I've never actually done it once in real life. That's why I'm losing my mind."
Han Seoyeon gripped the waistband of her track pants and slowly drew them down. At the same time, her lips pressed close against my ear, and the whisper that followed sent a shiver straight down my spine. The sound of her swallowing, thick and audible, rang out shamelessly through the room.
"If it's not my neck, then what? What else?"
Having slid her pants all the way down past her hips, she wedged one leg between my thighs. Through her panties, the sensation of something already soaked came through unmistakably.
"Don't tell me... you're already this wet?"
At my question, her confident expression wavered for the first time. Her ears flushed red, and she even snapped her head away.
"Shut up. I'm just sensitive by nature."
Even so, she forcibly took my hand and dragged it over to press against her panties. The drenched fabric clung cold against my palm.
So, doing it the way I'd watched hundreds of times in porn, I rubbed up and down with my index finger—and Han Seoyeon's breathing grew visibly ragged.
"F-fuck, there—"
The moment she clutched my shoulder hard and rested her forehead against my collarbone, a strange mischievous impulse rose up in me. Call it the pent-up resentment of being dismissed as a "safe tool."
I slipped my hand inside her panties, then pulled it back out and held it up before her eyes.
"Hey... you're seriously overflowing. My fingertips are all slippery."
Han Seoyeon stared at the clear, sticky fluid coating my fingers, and her voice turned sharp.
"Why would you show me that! Are you insane!"
Whether out of embarrassment or anger, she even slapped my wrist away. But she was still squirming, still writhing—there was no sign of her actually wanting to stop. So this time, even bolder, I pushed the waistband of her panties aside and drove my hand deep inside.
"Haah... shit..."
Instantly, Han Seoyeon's thighs clamped down tight, and hot, slick flesh wrapped around my finger perfectly. I slid my index finger in slowly, and the narrow channel inside resisted for a moment before clenching hard around it. Pulsing, feverish heat contracting and releasing again and again, like a heartbeat made of flesh.
Watching reactions I'd only ever seen in porn unfold right before my eyes, I got so worked up that my fingers started moving faster than I meant them to.
"Wait... don't move that fast. Give me time to adjust."
"You want me to stop moving?"
"No—not stop, just... go slower..."
Even as she said it, the inside of her kept biting down on my hand, quivering without pause. So much clear fluid ran down the back of my hand that it reached my wrist.
I couldn't hold out any longer. The ache throbbing inside my pants was pushing right up against its limit.
"I'm... honestly about to lose it too, so tell me straight. Are we doing this or not?"
But Han Seoyeon's actions were faster than my words. Freeing herself from my hand, she climbed onto the bed with her panties already gone, and then—slowly, but with unmistakable certainty—spread her legs into an M.
Between the parted folds, her flushed, glistening depths were laid bare without a shred of shame.
Was this reality? Was this porn? Or had I simply gone mad from years of starvation? It had grown so vivid, so hot, that I could no longer tell the difference.
Steadying her rough breathing, she looked up at me.
"What are you waiting for? Take your pants off. Or are you just going to stand there and stare?"
Along with a voice that, if this was a dream, I never wanted to wake from.