The Intersection of Black and White (Sae vs. Ji-su, Part 1)
From the very start there were two worlds that could never mix.
A glittering artistic lineage spanning three generations. Born into it, perfectly formed like white porcelain, was Han Ji-su. Her life had always been the beauty of flawless symmetry, designed without a single margin of error.
By contrast there was a damp two-pyeong room in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Miyamoto Sae’s life had always been the bottom. After her debt-ridden father fled, Sae never took a single day off work. Yet no matter how hard she ground herself down, the money barely came. Luck had gotten her a scholarship and student status in Korea, but nothing truly changed.
A life of brilliance and abundance on one side; a mud-wallow of constant struggle on the other. The trajectories of two women who should never have crossed finally collided.
Their first intersection was the cherry-blossom-strewn campus of Korea’s most prestigious university.
While the radiant Ji-su reigned like a queen, forever surrounded by people, Sae was always alone.
From a distance Sae looked up and swallowed a bitter cocktail of inferiority and loneliness. Could I ever shine like that? Reality was merciless. The dazzling lights always treated Sae as a thorough outsider and shoved her away.
Time passed, and Ji-su’s life reached its crowning peak. Marriage to a husband who possessed wealth, looks, and power meant the completion of her existence.
But that perfection was shattered by a single casual act of charity.
Even after graduation Sae remained stuck at the bottom. Cornered to the brink, unable even to cover her monthly rent, she was offered a hand by pure chance—from Ji-su. A temporary housekeeper position in the grand mansion. To Sae it was the only lifeline and opportunity left. To Ji-su it was nothing more than tossing a trivial job to a hard-up classmate.
Life in the mansion was daily visual violence and humiliation for Sae. It was all the crueler because Ji-su meant no malice. While Sae knelt scrubbing the floor, Ji-su tossed a multi-million-won dress over her head and said,
“Sae, I wore this once and I’m already bored of it. Want it? Or just throw it out.”
Unconscious violence. The serene voice that uttered those words while leisurely sipping coffee woke the demon that had been sleeping inside Sae’s chest.
Sae watched Ji-su’s seemingly perfect marriage. And she quickly realized: I can take this.
Beneath her unadorned, youthful face lay a raw sensuality that pierced straight into male instinct. She knew exactly the value of her body and turned it into the rope that would haul her to the top floor.
Sae put Ji-su’s husband on top of her and made him howl like a beast all night. Every time, at the peak of pleasure, he drove into her while crying her name, Sae felt the ecstasy of owning the entire world.
Now if I can just get pregnant!
The viper that had crawled up from the mud finally coiled itself to shatter the white porcelain.
“I’m sorry, Ji-su. Senior says he loves me more. Could you just step aside without getting hurt?”
The meeting Ji-su had called.
Sae was no longer the timid housekeeper or the poor foreign student. Wearing tens of millions of won in jewels her husband had bought her, she wept with calculated pathos.
I’m not sorry at all. I’ve hated you since school.
Watching Ji-su’s composure crack, Sae sneered inwardly.
Staring at the loathsome invader before her, Ji-su bit her lip.
I’d rather die than hand my place over to that filthy bitch.
And somehow the secret messengers who moved among the VVIPs approached both women in turn.
Avalon, 5th basement floor — the Black Room. An arena for females where every law and every moral has been erased. Rank is decided solely by the collision of flesh against flesh in Sex Combat. The loser surrenders every right to the winner.
When Ji-su took the invitation, a cruel smile spread across her lips. A legal guillotine that would let her cleanse that detestable bitch with her own hands. She willingly decided to throw her body onto the execution platform. She would permanently destroy Sae’s reproductive function and turn her into refuse that could never again open her legs beside her husband.
In her officetel, Sae likewise shuddered when she received the invitation. Before the overwhelming background of the legitimate wife she had always felt crushing inferiority and fear, but if it was the beast’s domain where body crashed into body, the story changed.
If I destroy Ji-su forever, I can take that place completely for myself.
Sae smiled. It was the perfect chance to crush Ji-su’s stiff lower half and prove to the entire world which female was superior enough to receive a male’s seed.
The day the Sex Combat contract was to be sealed, the consultation room on Avalon’s 5th basement floor was suffocatingly cold.
At opposite ends of a black-obsidian table sat Ji-su and Sae. The two women stared each other down in silence.
Then the door opened and Director Lee Se-ryeong walked in. A perfectly fitted black suit without a speck of dust, eyes that seemed completely castrated of emotion. She dropped a file folder onto the center of the table as if throwing it.
“I trust both parties are already familiar with the rules of Avalon’s Black Room.”
Se-ryeong’s dry voice sliced through the conference-room air. On the table screen she brought up raw medical photographs of female bodies whose lower halves had been ruptured in past Sex Combats.
“What both of you desire is the permanent loss of the opponent’s femininity. The loser transfers ownership of the husband and every right of the household mistress to the winner, and may seek neither legal nor moral responsibility for the destroyed body.”
Se-ryeong looked from Ji-su to Sae and back, then laid a metallic pen atop the documents.
“If you stop here, both of you may walk out on two intact legs. The moment you sign, however, nothing ends until one body on the ring is completely ruined. What will you do?”
The words had barely fallen when Ji-su snorted and spat back in a voice dripping poison.
“Stop? Don’t make me laugh. I will never stand by and watch that bitch swallow my husband’s seed and take my place.”
At that bone-deep arrogance and razor insult, Sae slammed the table and shot to her feet.
“Fine, Han Ji-su! I’ll go all the way too! Let’s settle once and for all who drives a man crazier!”
Ji-su rose as well, radiating cold murderous intent, and strode straight toward Sae. The sudden collision left Se-ryeong no time to intervene.
“Get away from my husband! Surrender right now!”
“You surrender! Senior says you’re boring!”
Both women screamed and lunged at once. Sae savagely seized Ji-su’s long glossy black hair with both hands; Ji-su likewise grabbed Sae’s cute short bob and shook it like a madwoman.
“Aaaah! Let go! Let go of me, you thieving bitch!”
“You let go first! I’ll strip that stiff shell right off you!”
They tumbled and tangled across the marble floor. The elegant potter and the pure-looking foreign student no longer existed. Only the ugly thrashing of two beasts reduced to females fighting to monopolize a male’s seed remained.
Ji-su ripped Sae’s blouse open, buttons flying in every direction, and carved deep nail tracks into the exposed throat and chest.
Not to be outdone, Sae mounted Ji-su, slapped her cheek raw, and smeared the coat with blood and spit until it was a wreck.
The dull thuds of skulls striking the floor echoed through the room, yet both women forgot pain and opened their mouths to bite each other’s flesh.
Slap! Slap! With the nauseating sound of flesh on flesh they took turns smashing each other’s cheeks in a frenzy.
“You clueless insect! You’ve been nothing since the old days! And a bitch like you dares covet the master bedroom!”
“Just a pretty shell! Oppa says you’re boring! All you know how to do is lie there like a doll!”
While the venomous curses flew, Ji-su raked her long manicured nails across Sae’s face without mercy. Long bloody lines opened on the soft cheek and beads of crimson welled up. Screaming in pain, Sae writhed and drove the sharp heel of her pump into Ji-su’s abdomen with a solid thud.
A choked groan escaped as Ji-su’s body was shoved back; Sae used the opening to climb on top of her. She seized the demure dress beneath Ji-su’s coat and tried to tear it to shreds so the bare skin would show. A vulgar, classless brawl with not a trace of elegance left. Underwear straps snapped and naked flesh was uglily exposed, yet neither woman stopped.
“Separate them.”
Even facing that chaos Se-ryeong did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. At her single cold command the waiting cleanup-team agents rushed in and forcibly pried the two entangled beasts apart. Clumps of torn hair fluttered grotesquely across the table.
Sae gasped for breath and swept her wild hair back like an animal; Ji-su, nose bleeding, panted and glared as if she meant to tear Sae apart.
Se-ryeong pushed the documents and pen toward them again.
“Sign.”
With blood-smeared hands Ji-su and Sae snatched up the pens and scrawled their names across the papers in savage strokes.
Now only one thing remained.