Chapter 5
When Yu-bin popped the plug out of Do-ha's anus as she lay unconscious on the bathroom floor, urine came trickling out.
As she worked her foamed-up hand into the hole with a squelch, the sight of Do-ha's ass twitching toward the ceiling was ridiculous.
There was a stark contrast between Do-ha's lower body—her thighs and calves taped tightly together with tape that held even when wet, her crotch left obscenely exposed—and her face as she slept without a care in the world.
Shhhk.
Startled awake by the cold water from the hose, Do-ha looked around, then tilted her head back and stared down at her own wide-open crotch.
"Here. I'm going to clean you up."
Yu-bin's finger pointed at Do-ha's pussy. With cleanser on her hand, Yu-bin's finger slid inside her vagina. Squelch, squelch, squish, squish—she stirred the soft inner walls this way and that, and when she pulled her fingers out, they were coated with white, clotted fluid.
"Ah, I'm only cleaning you. You're not supposed to enjoy it."
Unlike her tone, which sounded like gentle scolding, her expression held a smile.
With Do-ha's thighs and calves stuck together so she couldn't move at all, Yu-bin brought a toothbrush to Do-ha's stiffly swollen clitoris.
"Eh, ugh!!!!!"
"All right, time to brush~"
"Gah... ack... ngh... ghk."
"Pfft, what was that? So cute."
She squeezed toothpaste onto the toothbrush and brought it back to Do-ha's clitoris, moving her hand diligently, and Do-ha's eyes rolled back.
"Ugh!! Aah!! Agh!! Ah!! Aah!!"
"Aww, does it feel that good?"
Do-ha thrust out her hips and legs, and with pssht, pssht, arcs of fluid sprayed from her urethral opening like a fountain.
"Pfft, oh, hilarious. I'm cleaning you, so you shouldn't keep making a mess."
Despite the scolding tone, a gleeful, playful giggle slipped through.
"Ugh, aah, s-st-stop it."
I would rather have passed out, but this goddamn body of mine was taking in the pain from my lower half and the unwanted pleasure with perfect clarity.
"Ah, ah! Ugh, ah, ah!!!"
Her clitoris, tormented and erect with its hood peeled back, had become far too sensitive for hundreds of toothbrush bristles rubbing against it; a single movement of Yu-bin's hand tore a shriek out of her.
"Pfft, God, you're so cute I'm going crazy. You're so cute I could die, you know that?"
Yu-bin laughed as she looked at Do-ha's face. Liquid—whether water from earlier or drool—dripped around her mouth. The bathroom was filled with the sound of ragged breathing.
"Ngh... hngh... ngh... ah..."
Her pupils, already half-unfocused, were trembling wildly.
"S-st-stop, p-please stop."
"Honestly... I'm in the middle of cleaning, so what am I supposed to do if you keep dirtying yourself, hm? Stop squirting."
Ignoring Do-ha's pleas, Yu-bin brought her face close as if speaking to the clitoris itself, and stretched Do-ha's small, cute clit between her index finger and thumb.
Pshh. Another strong jet sprayed from her urethra.
"Tsk, I should just plug up your urethra or something."
I shampooed Do-ha's hair, rinsed her off roughly, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out. Clutching her trembling body, she looked up at me as if she wanted something.
"Um, Yu-bin, c-can you give me a towel?"
"? Why would I?"
"I'm too c-cold."
She sniffled as she spoke. I gave a small, incredulous laugh.
"Hmph. No."
Do-ha hesitated and started crawling toward the bed, but I got there first and yanked the blanket away.
"Huh, wh-why?"
"There's a throw on the couch downstairs, so cover yourself with that or something. I don't want to sleep with you."
Holding her trembling body, Do-ha took one careful step after another. Then—skid, splat. Water and polished marble were a bad combination. There was a loud scraping sound. I threw open the bedroom door and rushed into the hall.
"Oh, uh... ugh, I-I'm s-sorry."
She looked downright pitiful, sprawled on the floor and smearing the fallen drops of blood around with her palms and arms. Naked, with blood streaming from her nose, she desperately tried to wipe the marble clean with her bare skin, but only made it dirtier, squeaking against the floor as she scrubbed.
"...Did you fall?"
The stairs were right in front of her. If she'd fallen a few steps farther—just thinking about it made me dizzy. I ran to the bathroom for a towel, wrapped Do-ha up like a caterpillar, and carried her back to bed.
"It's hot, so be careful."
I went downstairs, made some cocoa, and handed it to Do-ha.
"Ah, hot hot..."
Her hands were still trembling faintly as she took the cocoa.
"Heh, hehe, thanks."
I should call it here for today and let her sleep. I adjusted the brightness of the mood lamp on the bedside table, turned off the light, and pulled Do-ha tightly into my arms.
When I woke up and didn't see Do-ha in bed, I shot upright. I found her wedged like a cat between the corner of the bed and the table, clutching a bath towel.
"What are you doing there?"
"Oh, no, you said you didn't want to sleep with me, so..."
"Huh..."
I put her in some pajamas that were easy to move in and took her downstairs.
"I have work at the company, so I'll be back. If you're bored, watch TV. Oh, and you can take books out of the study."
"Wh-when will you be back?"
"I don't know yet... Oh, come here for a second."
Clink. The cold metal settled directly against the skin of my ankle.
"It's not long enough to reach outside the front door anyway, so don't get any ideas. Oh, there's food in the fridge. I made curry too—you know roughly where the bowls and spoons are, right?"
While Yu-bin hurriedly got ready, just before leaving she turned back, pulled me into a sudden hug, and kissed me twice. Smooch, smooch. Then she hurried back toward the front door.
"...Be good, okay? Don't cause trouble."
Ding-dong. Beep-beep-beep.
Right after that, the door clicked, then clunked as it locked twice. I wasn't particularly hungry, so I wandered around the spacious living room. When the soles of my feet got cold, I carefully fetched a pair of indoor slippers from the entryway.
I clicked through channels until I stopped on one filled with people's laughter. None of it was really registering, so I stared blankly for a while before flopping onto my side. Only then did my brain slowly begin to process my situation, and it started to feel real.
If we rewind a little into the past.
I was someone with a stronger desire for freedom than anyone.
Of all the things about elementary, middle, and high school, sitting pointlessly through class was the hardest for me.
I skipped school and left early without permission so often that I barely avoided being held back, but I managed to graduate high school.
At the university I entered afterward, I was already famous from orientation just because of my looks.
Objectively, I had the kind of looks that could have gotten me accepted as an idol trainee without much trouble. Honestly, if I'd applied myself more in school, maybe I would have tried it, but putting in effort just wasn't me.
Looking back, it was pretty scummy, but I dumped my assignments on older students and classmates. Honestly, using my brain was never my strong suit. Naturally, my GPA never broke 4.0.
From sophomore year on, I let my attendance and grades go completely to hell. I ignored every retake notice, took a leave of absence, came back, and barely managed to graduate. My weekend routine was drinking myself stupid and staying out with friends at pickup pubs or clubs until dawn, then catching the first train home after six in the morning.
After graduating with that garbage GPA, I drifted around drinking like a wastrel, and just as my money was running out, I got a call from an upperclassman I knew from college.
"Oh, I'm so grateful, but... do you think I can do it?"
I knew that much. Even judging my past behavior objectively, I was about as far from working life as you could get.
To be precise, every time I dragged myself out of bed at 7 a.m., washed in a rush, and scrambled to work, I thought, ah, I'm really glad I got a place near the office.
I knew opportunities like this were rare with my credentials, so before my first meeting with a client, I was so nervous I wondered if I should take an herbal calming pill.
Stumbling over my words and making mistake after mistake was embarrassing enough, but worse was the fact that the people on my side and the people across from us couldn't find common ground, and the atmosphere kept getting colder.
While I was holding back the urge to cry, a woman who had been watching me closely for a while smiled and spoke up.
"We can accommodate up to two months for the timeline. Are there any other conditions you'd like?"
The people across from her, who looked like subordinates, were flustered for a moment, but energy returned to the frozen atmosphere.
After the two-hour meeting—long if you called it long, short if you called it short—I was finally relaxing and about to leave when I heard someone call after me. I turned around.
"Um, that contact info you gave me earlier. If it's all right with you, would it be okay if I contacted you personally too?"
"Huh? Oh, well..."
What were the odds of meeting another lesbian out in the world? And of her making the first move on me, no less.
After I got back to the office, just when I started wondering if I'd gotten ahead of myself—
Ding.
-How about dinner after work?
Maybe it was because she was so mature it was hard to believe she was only two years older, and because she always looked out for me, that I came to rely on her. We quickly went from friends to lovers.
Of course couples fight over the course of a long relationship. College classmates, friends I'd met while drinking, an older friend I'd almost gotten into a fight with in a club bathroom before we became friends—I had plenty of shallow relationships from running around so much.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks, as they say. Well, what can you do? I liked it this way.
Of course, I only had one body, and after a full workday I couldn't make plans every night. So staying in with Yu-bin became our norm. Sometimes she'd latch onto tiny things and interrogate me relentlessly, and saying "let's break up" became a habit of mine.
Every time, her expression would slowly harden, and it was Yu-bin who backed down first. I wanted to fix this rotten personality of mine, but by then the power dynamic between us had already been silently decided.
Surprisingly enough, despite my behavior, which must have looked easy to others, Yu-bin was my first relationship.
I'd received plenty of confessions, but I was so uninterested in dating that my friends frequently asked if I was asexual.
Honestly, just looking at my friends, they fought with their partners every single day, all that life-and-death drama.
It didn't fit with my free-spirited mindset, I thought.
Of course, once I started seeing Yu-bin, I genuinely loved her. But our personalities and temperaments were so different that fighting as often as we saw each other was almost inevitable.
"No but seriously, she's been a little obsessive lately."
It started as the kind of trash talk people do after a fight with their partner, something I said without thinking much about it. I genuinely had no intention of breaking up. I was just blowing off steam.
-Is that my fault?
-You're fighting over that?
-Hey, that's gaslighting.
-At this point you've been together a while~ lol. Just end it.
Before I knew it, it was just gossip.
After a fight, badmouthing her like this relieved some stress, and everyone would say they were breaking up with their boyfriend one day, then a week later they'd be perfectly fine and still dating.
As I said, I really had no intention of breaking up. At some point, "let's stop seeing each other" had become a habit that came out every time we fought, and I used it like a magic spell to stop the fighting.
But was that really all it was?
Really? Really?
No. Thinking too deeply about it would only make me depressed. I got up, went to the kitchen, heated the curry in the pot, ate, then returned to the sofa. Full and drowsy, I pulled the blanket over myself and closed my eyes.
If I took a nap, Yu-bin would probably be back by the time I woke up.