Part 1 - Fake Leash(3)
Part 1 - Fake Leash(3)
Lately, my days have been hazy, as if I were wandering through a thick fog.
"Now, shall student Cha Do-hee summarize what the 'Manchuria Romance' looks like in 1930s Korean literature?"
"Yes, Professor. The 'Manchuria Romance' emerged as colonial Joseon intellectuals chose Manchuria as an escape from reality during a period when Imperial Japan's surveillance and censorship were intensifying. However, beneath the surface, it shows a complex aspect of either being co-opted by or resisting the ruling logic of Imperial Japan's construction of Manchukuo."
"Correct. By this time, colonial Joseon intellectuals felt stifled by social censorship and kept wanting to go to Manchuria, which led to works featuring Manchuria popping up. Works we'll cover today, like Ahn Soo-gil's <Dawn>, Choi Seo-hae's <Red Flame>, and Lee Tae-jun's <Farmers>, are such works. <Farmers> deals with the Wanpaoshan Incident, but we'll cover that later. The deciding factor for the 'Manchuria Romance' was the Manchurian Incident, which led to the founding of Manchukuo. At the time, Manchukuo put forward 'Five Races Under One Union' as its ruling ideology. If you ask if that was actually achieved, the answer would be no, but there was a strong belief that it would at least be better than colonial Joseon. Above all, the land was vast, but Imperial Japan's police force was insufficient. Has anyone here been to Manchuria? I went there about twenty years ago, and if you go, it's a plain so vast you truly can't see the end of it. This is why Imperial Japan had no choice but to deploy its police force mainly around the railways. Shall we talk about the Wanpaoshan Incident for a moment? If you look at <Farmers>, doesn't it say they fought over waterways? The situation at the time was actually like that. The Chinese who were originally residing there were farming dry fields, while the Korean immigrants had to farm rice paddies. To farm rice, they had to dig irrigation channels. The problem was that digging the channels ruined the dry fields. Naturally, conflict arose between the Chinese and the Koreans, leading to friction. This led to an armed clash between Chinese farmers and the Japanese police, but the problem was the misinformation about this incident. They reported that several Koreans had died when there were no Korean casualties. Afterward, a large-scale massacre of overseas Chinese occurred throughout the Korean Peninsula. It is a shameful part of our history, but it is not taught well even now. When teaching history, we teach the history where we were the victims, but it shows the contradiction of not trying to teach the history where we were the perpetrators."
The professor's voice repeated the cycle of fading into the distance and coming back close.
I forced my heavy eyelids open and stared blankly at the back of Do-hee-sunbae, who was sitting in the center of the front row, answering with a posture that didn't have a single flaw.
A neatly ironed white blouse, black hair tied up tidily.
Her clear voice, showing no signs of having pulled an all-nighter, and her perfect answer brought a satisfied smile to the professor's face.
The classmates around us also let out small gasps, as if overwhelmed by her perfection.
The absolute sanctuary of the Korean Literature department that everyone looked up to.
Watching that lofty figure, I suppressed the laughter bubbling up.
'What a joke. Can those idiots here even imagine that this perfect sunbae kneels on the floor of my studio apartment every night and gasps for breath?'
Since that night of the first feedback, our night classes had already been continuing every day for two weeks.
Every night at 11 PM, sunbae would knock on the door of my studio apartment.
She would completely shed that noble shell from school, appearing in a loose hoodie, dolphin shorts, and a baseball cap pulled low, and set up her laptop at my feet.
I would sit on the bed or chair and play the editor, and sunbae would have to read the obscene sentences she wrote out loud according to my instructions or personally reenact the shameful positions or skinship I demanded.
"Sunbae, the description has become stiff again. I told you to write about the temperature when your fingers touch. Feel it yourself. Come on, touch the inside of my thigh. Don't tremble, deeper."
"Heuk... Yeon-woo-ya, please... I, this is really my first time with something like this...."
"You're offering your body for me to learn because it's your first time. If the writer says it doesn't feel real, the editor has to sacrifice. Are you not going to touch me quickly? Should I just blast this to the department group chat?"
Every time I used threats as a weapon to force skinship, sunbae would blush with shame and shed tears.
Seeing sunbae, who was a head taller than me, trembling pitifully at my every touch and shout, endlessly stimulated the twisted sadism and desire for domination inside me.
I was convinced that I had perfectly tamed sunbae into my toy.
However, there were side effects behind that sweet power. It was my sleep time.
Feedback usually lasted until 3 or 4 AM.
When I was drunk on the pleasure of tormenting and controlling sunbae, I didn't even know I was tired, but the daily routine of getting a short sleep after sunbae left and attending morning classes was literally hell.
Even though I drank coffee and energy drinks like water, I couldn't control the pouring drowsiness.
It felt like chronic fatigue was gnawing away at my brain cells.
On the other hand, sunbae, who was also pulling all-nighters, was bizarrely fine.
No, rather, her skin was even fairer and glowing. As if she had been sucking someone's life force every night.
"Then, we will end today's class here. Any questions? If not, we'll finish with this."
The classroom became noisy with the professor's declaration of the end of the lecture.
I shoved my books and laptop into my bag and stumbled out of the classroom.
I felt like I would die if I didn't collapse and sleep somewhere right now.
I irritably brushed off my classmates who were trying to catch me to go eat, and headed to the deserted club room.
As soon as I collapsed onto the old sofa in the corner of the empty club room, a distant wave of sleepiness washed over me.
How long had I slept?
Beyond my hazy consciousness, I heard the sound of the sliding door opening.
I wanted to open my eyes, but my eyelids were as heavy as lead and wouldn't open.
I heard the sound of someone entering the club room and putting down a bag, the sound of water boiling in an electric kettle, and then the sound of water being poured.
And not long after, a familiar scent pierced the stale air of the club room and burrowed into the tip of my nose.
The scent of tangerines and bitterness.
It was the scent of Lady Grey tea that Do-hee-sunbae always carried with her.
"Ha-eut...!"
The moment I smelled that scent, my body, which had been half-asleep on the sofa, jumped up as if it had been electrocuted.
Reflexively, my waist arched like a bow, my inner thighs burned hot, and I could vividly feel the sensation of my panties getting wet.
A flushed moan leaked out of my lips.
Crazy, what's wrong with me?
When I opened my eyes wide, sunbae was standing right in front of the sofa.
Sunbae was looking down at me expressionlessly, holding a teacup in one hand.
"Yeon-woo-ya, were you sleeping here?"
"Ah, sunbae... Yes, I was so tired...."
I hurriedly closed my legs and sat up.
My heart was beating like crazy. My face was burning as if it would explode.
I was so ashamed and embarrassed at myself for reacting like a bitch in heat, with my body responding first just from smelling the black tea.
Sunbae stared at my reddened face and ragged breathing, then approached with a strange smile on her lips.
"Our editor, aren't you overdoing it lately by teaching me? Your complexion is a mess."
Sunbae's cold, long fingers touched my hot cheek.
To that touch, which I should have flinched and avoided in normal circumstances, I was surprisingly closing my eyes tightly and rubbing my cheek against her palm.
Like a puppy begging for its owner's touch, an extremely natural and blind reflex action.
"Ah...."
When I lifted my head, shocked by my own actions, I saw it.
The gaze of a predator, with the weak novice writer who had always trembled in shame and gasped at my feet nowhere to be found.
"If you're tired, do you want to drink this?"
Sunbae whispered in a soft voice and brought the teacup to my lips.
The past two weeks of nights. Sunbae had always brewed this tea.
Every time I teased sunbae's body and forced skinship, sunbae would shed tears pretending to be ashamed, but she had subtly stimulated the most sensitive erogenous zones I had.
Every time I gasped for breath, drunk on pleasure, this deep Lady Grey scent that sunbae exuded was always lingering at the tip of my nose.
I was blindly convinced that I was controlling sunbae and teaching her sexual knowledge, but the reality was different.
Sunbae had been depriving me of sleep to castrate my rational judgment and then training me as a perfect Pavlov's dog.
To obediently submit to the owner's touch, pouring out arousal fluid reflexively just by smelling this black tea. A thorough and secret neurological brainwashing.
"Sunbae... just now, what...."
Cognitive dissonance began to set in.
The initiative is with me. I am the top. I am the one in control.
Then why is my body submitting so helplessly and wagging its tail in front of her scent and the smell of black tea?
Sunbae pushed the teacup against my stiff lips and whispered into my ear in a sweet voice.
"Drink, Yeon-woo-ya. A good editor should listen to the writer. We have to write the serialized part tonight too... so sleep well during the day."
The shallow sandcastle I had built was crumbling silently amidst the scent of the black tea she was handing me.