Part 1 - Fake Leash(9)
Part 1 - Fake Leash(9)
At 1 a.m., I lay on Yeon-woo's bed covered only by a thin blanket, quietly gazing at Yeon-woo's face as she slept deeply in my arms, completely oblivious to the world.
Yeon-woo's slender shoulders rising and falling rhythmically, her hair stuck to her forehead damp with yesterday's tears and sweat, even her lips still twitching faintly.
"Eung... urgh."
As if uncomfortable in her sleep, Yeon-woo tossed and instinctively burrowed into my embrace, burying her face in my chest.
To me, even that small, unconscious gesture felt utterly lovable.
Centered around my lower body, every joint in my body throbbed as if screaming.
The wrists that had been pressed by harsh restraints were bruised dark blue, and the areas around my nape and collarbone that Yeon-woo had bitten still pulsed with a stinging pain.
Due to the unfamiliar rough acts, my inner thighs were a mess of dried love juices and virgin blood, and the lace of my black underwear lay scattered on the floor, torn so horribly it was unrecognizable.
If a third party were to objectively view this situation, it was clearly evidence of rape.
Yesterday, whenever Yeon-woo's fingertips dug into my skin, roughly ravaged my insides, and tried to break me, I sweetly accepted that pain.
Even if Yeon-woo cruelly trampled and wounded me, I love her.
'What reason do I have to care about the looks from those lowly classmates of mine. The one panting like a beast and spreading her legs beneath me is none other than this oh-so-great Cha Do-hee.'
Yeon-woo's voice, drunk on triumph as she licked up my virgin blood and laughed at me, surfaced in my mind.
"As long as you're happy, I don't care what happens to me. Yeon-woo-ya."
After shyly kissing Yeon-woo's lips, I pulled her into my arms and fell asleep again.
The bluish dawn light seeping through the window gap was warming the air of the cramped studio apartment.
Yeon-woo was still asleep.
I carefully raised my upper body. The tearing pain felt in my lower body made my brow furrow involuntarily, but thinking that this too was a gift from Yeon-woo, an irrepressible smile spread across my lips.
I roughly threw on my blouse that had been strewn across the floor and picked up Yeon-woo's smartphone on the nightstand.
As soon as I turned on the screen, several new messages appeared in Yeon-woo's classmate group chat.
[Hey, did anyone see Jung Yeon-woo leaving with senior Cha Do-hee yesterday?]
[Were those two always close?]
[Not long ago she was talking trash about senior Do-hee saying she's always getting bossed around, and now she's clinging to her lol lol lol]
[But hasn't Jung Yeon-woo been seriously weird lately?]
[She's always off mumbling to herself where no one's around, and now even when she talks to you it gives you the creeps.]
The classmate group chat was filled with gossip about Yeon-woo.
And I deleted all of those messages.
Of course, when Yeon-woo wakes up later and sees this empty chat room, she might once again suffer severe cognitive dissonance and have a seizure.
She'll clutch her head, hyperventilate, and agonize, thinking she hallucinated and that the whole world is ignoring her and has cut off communication with her.
But if I left those messages as they were and Yeon-woo saw them, it was just as possible she might take her own life.
After placing the smartphone back on the nightstand where it belonged, I dragged my staggering legs and headed to the bathroom.
I turned on the shower and let the warm water run, carefully washing away the rough traces Yeon-woo had left on my body.
A strange sense of regret remained each time the dried bloodstains and mucus on my inner thighs were washed away, but the red and blue teeth marks engraved on my nape and collarbone I kept preciously intact so they would peek slightly out of my clothes.
After finishing my shower, I toweled off my wet hair and habitually lit the gas burner in the cramped kitchen.
I began to boil egg porridge to soothe Yeon-woo's aching stomach, which must have been completely emptied after she poured out all her energy the previous night.
Lately, Yeon-woo hadn't been able to eat properly due to stress, so I wished that she could swallow this porridge and have a comfortable meal.
There was not a hint of impatience in my touch as I stirred slowly with the wooden spatula.
It was simply the appearance of a devoted woman caring for the lover she cherished most in the world.
When the porridge was finished just right, I turned off the gas.
And I rolled around in my mouth the sweet command that Yeon-woo, drunk on pleasure, had impulsively thrown out yesterday.
'Senior, starting tomorrow, you absolutely commute to school with me. Don't go anywhere else, stay glued right next to me at school, and do everything I tell you. No, actually, clear out of your officetel room and live here with me from now on.'
Living together, oh my god! Living together!
I couldn't have even imagined that our Yeon-woo would invite me into her home as its mistress.
Of course, Yeon-woo must have blurted out living together as a means of control to keep me by her side and boss me around 24 hours a day, but I was simply happy just to be able to share in every bit of Yeon-woo's daily life and every breath.
I began making plans to immediately move all my belongings out of my officetel this afternoon and into Yeon-woo's studio apartment.
My clothes, my books, my blanket, and all the objects saturated with my thick body scent would fill Yeon-woo's narrow space.
So that wherever Yeon-woo looked, whatever breath she inhaled, she could be with me.
Just then, a rustling sound came from the bed.
Yeon-woo was groggily raising her upper body with tousled hair.
The fatigue and headache from yesterday's rampage were plainly evident on her pale face.
Her unfocused, bleary eyes scanned the room, then she stiffened her shoulders with a flinch at the warm smell of porridge wafting from the kitchen.
And then, discovering me in her field of vision, she glared at me with a rigidly frozen expression.
In that split second, I perfectly wiped away the smile that had spread across my lips, giddy at the thought of living with Yeon-woo.
And like always, I instantly donned the mask of the blindly obedient toy that I only showed before her.
"Ah... Yeon-woo-ya, you're awake...?"
I neatly arranged a bowl of freshly boiled egg porridge and a glass of warm water to soothe her stomach on a tray, and carefully approached the bedside.
I deliberately limped slightly in my gait, acting a pitiful expression as if struggling to endure the tearing pain in my inner thighs.
I didn't miss the momentary violent flicker in Yeon-woo's pupils, revealing a trace of guilt, when she saw the bite marks on my nape blatantly exposed between my collar.
"How's your stomach...? Yesterday... you seemed so exhausted... all I could do for you was offer my body. I boiled some egg porridge so it wouldn't burden your empty stomach... will you eat even a little?"
I knelt on the heated floor mat by the bed, reverently holding up the tray with both hands and carefully looking up at Yeon-woo.
My eyes were filled only with blind affection for her.
Yeon-woo was silent for a moment, alternately looking at my wretched state and the porridge so earnestly boiled for her.
Inside her head, cognitive dissonance, reality denial, and a shallow sense of superiority were probably battling fiercely once again.
And as always, Yeon-woo, unable to overcome the fear of reality, chose to escape into the arrogance that she had completely subjugated me.
"Who told you to kneel on your own? Give me the tray."
Yeon-woo deliberately donned a cold voice, trying hard to hide her trembling fingertips, and snatched the tray.
And feeling the warm steam rising from the porridge, she lifted her chin as if she were some great monarch and looked down at me.
"You didn't forget what I said yesterday, right? Today, immediately move all your stuff out and into my room. Starting today, senior, you can't take a single step out of my studio apartment without my permission. At school too, stay next to me like a dog, got it?"
"Yes... yes, Yeon-woo-ya. I'll do whatever you say. Just let me stay by your side, don't abandon me...."
I rubbed my face against Yeon-woo's knees, acting out a suppressed sob and whispering.
Yeon-woo's hand roughly stroked me, revealing her possessiveness over me without restraint.
"Wash up and get ready. We're going to school."
Yeon-woo commanded as she rose from the bed.
As I watched her pitiful back figure heading to the bathroom, staggering on unsteady legs yet trying hard to look dignified, I slowly lifted my face that had been buried against my knees.
Yeon-woo-ya, I love you.
Only you are the meaning of my life, only you are my everything.
If you choose life, I too will go on living.
If you choose death, I will unhesitatingly take my own life.
School. Yes, let's go to school.
Just try to harm Yeon-woo.
I'll stop everything that threatens you.
I'll be your shield.
So that no one can approach you, I'll make it so that only I remain in your world.
So that you, trembling in fear, can only breathe within my arms, I'll decorate this hellish campus into a sweet cage for you.
I'll let you live forever in the delusion that you dominate me.
So please, Yeon-woo-ya.
I wish you would stay with me forever.