Part 1 - Fake Leash(5)
Part 1 - Fake Leash(5)
Tap, tap, tap.
In the dark room, the rhythmic sound of my fingertips striking the laptop keyboard echoed quietly.
Usually, this sound would bring a calm sense of stability to my heart.
But right now, at this moment, what occupied my entire attention wasn't the black letters endlessly filling the monitor.
It was the sound of Yeon-woo's thin breathing, as she curled up with her head on my lap, letting out shallow, irregular breaths through her pale, bloodless lips.
I withdrew my hand from the keyboard and carefully, tenderly brushed her hair aside.
As my cool body temperature touched her feverish forehead, Yeon-woo, seemingly feeling a sense of relief even in her unconscious state, let out a small moan and burrowed deeper into my embrace.
A terrible, heavy affection welled up in a corner of my heart at that pitiful, blind, and fragile gesture permitted only to me.
My lovely and pitiable little editor-nim.
Yeon-woo firmly believes that she has perfectly controlled and dominated me.
Her touch, as she points out the crude descriptions in my novel, lifts her chin arrogantly, and wields the weapon of blackmail to toy with my body, is truly nothing short of pathetic.
The tears I shed while trembling before the shameful skinship she forces upon me are merely my consideration and acting, designed to satisfy her pride and reassure her.
Yeon-woo is completely deceived by that obvious act, becoming arrogant as she mistakes herself for the absolute 'top' in this relationship, firmly holding the leash of a wild beast.
But Yeon-woo will never know.
That her delusion is the lifeline I designed to keep her anchored to this harsh reality so she wouldn't shatter into pieces.
Yeon-woo has been unstable for a very long time.
Everyone at school saw her as a bright and diligent junior, a sharp student dreaming of becoming a competent publishing editor in the future, but to my eyes, having obsessively observed only her from one step behind, her festering inner self was all too transparent.
The empty eyes that would lose focus while she stared blankly into space instead of writing down the professor's words during class.
The muttering to herself in empty hallways or corners of the club room, as if talking to someone who didn't exist.
Sometimes, she would look around anxiously as if chased by the gaze of someone who wasn't there, or suddenly cover both ears and gasp for air like someone hearing terrible auditory hallucinations.
Yeon-woo's psyche was already cracking slowly, with cruel certainty.
Her ego, unable to bear the weight of reality, was creating a sweet escape called delusion and hallucination.
She was completely unaware that her soul was rotting from deep within—or perhaps, subconsciously, she sensed that ruin and was desperately denying it, walking a precarious tightrope.
When I first realized that terrible fact, I felt a despair as if the world were collapsing, and at the same time, an intense sense of mission that felt like it would burn my whole body.
This cruel world will not understand Yeon-woo's illness.
The moment she collapses, the peers who approached her pretending to be kind will treat her like a lunatic and point fingers, and the friends who whispered about shallow friendships will coldly leave her side.
And the cold hospital will lock her inside white iron bars, devouring all her remaining vitality and beauty with strong medication.
I could never allow Yeon-woo to wither away so wretchedly and miserably.
Because I love her so terribly that it wouldn't be a waste to give my life for her.
So, I decided to gift her a perfectly controlled reality so she wouldn't sink into the abyss.
There was only one reason I forced her to do endless department chores and review academic papers, working her to the bone.
If I made her obsessively fixate on pixel-level line spacing and spelling, at least in those moments when she was staring at the text, she wouldn't escape into delusions and could focus entirely on the reality in front of her.
The clear and exhausting roleplay of 'a busy junior being worked to the bone to be recognized by the top-of-the-class senior' was an excellent support structure that kept her from going completely insane.
However, recently, that was far from enough.
Yeon-woo's symptoms were deepening day by day, and it seemed difficult to suppress the hallucinations with just daily stress.
A stronger support was needed.
So, I meticulously dug a shameful trap.
Leaving the laptop screen on at my seat in the club room while I stepped away.
Specifically, leaving the serialization page of a 19+ GL novel open on that screen.
And even modifying the sentences to be artificial and stiff so that the novel's content would look like the writing of a sexually ignorant amateur.
Everything was bait to simultaneously explode the professional arrogance of Yeon-woo, who dreams of being an editor, and the desire for dominance that had always been suppressed by me.
As I expected, Yeon-woo took the bait.
Overwhelmed with the joy of holding the weakness of the senior she had looked up to all her life, she appointed herself my editor and called me to her studio apartment every night.
'Haa, haa... Yeon-woo-ya, today, today let's stop here. It's too... too much for me to handle...'
Every time I knelt on the floor, shedding tears and begging, a vivid sense of reality would well up in Yeon-woo's hazy eyes.
Every time I gasped and grew wet, unable to overcome Yeon-woo's coercion, she would focus all her attention on the hot temperature of my skin, the beads of sweat, and the raw moans echoing in her ears.
This physical stimulation—the pleasure and absolute superiority I provided by throwing my own body into it—perfectly pushed away the delusions and auditory hallucinations that were trying to encroach upon her brain.
That was the most devoted treatment I could give Yeon-woo.
It didn't matter if Yeon-woo laughed at me as a stupid senior caught by a weakness, or if she misunderstood that I was exploiting her.
As long as she could reign as an arrogant ruler on this fake sandcastle and breathe in reality, I could willingly become a toy crawling at her feet and shedding tears.
I withdrew my hand from the forehead of the deeply sleeping Yeon-woo and picked up her smartphone lying next to me.
'0229'.
That four-digit number I had muttered thoughtlessly as if annoyed while opening a delivery app last night.
The fact that this date, which only comes once every four years and deviates from a normal calendar, was Yeon-woo's birthday and the key to opening her entire world was so heartbreaking that I almost burst into tears, holding Yeon-woo right there yesterday.
Isn't it a number that fits too terribly well with Yeon-woo's unstable soul, which floats without being firmly rooted in reality?
When I unlocked it, her CocoaTalk conversation list filled the screen.
As a result of me controlling her sleep time extremely strictly yesterday, Yeon-woo had spectacularly burst out her suppressed unconsciousness and symptoms in front of everyone during the major presentation this morning.
My poor Yeon-woo, who gasped with pleasure and immorality at the tiny prescription medicine—the scent of black tea I emitted—on the podium where she should have been reciting her presentation script.
That hellish lecture hall where the cold ridicule and contemptuous gazes of her peers poured down like daggers.
At the very top of the conversation list was the name of the vice-class representative, Kim Ji-min, whom she firmly trusted and relied on.
A new message remained clearly visible with a notification badge. I read it with sharp, murderous eyes.
[Hey Jung Yeon-woo. I thought you were crazy during the presentation earlier. What the hell were you saying?]
[Do you know you've been acting a bit weird lately? Suddenly staring into space and talking to yourself, smiling to yourself. Honestly, you're starting to scare me. Don't you think you really need to go to a mental hospital or something?]
I felt anger rising from the depths of my heart as I took in those sentences.
Stupid idiots.
The reality of the friendship Yeon-woo valued so much was nothing more than this shallow shell.
To think that without even trying to see or embrace Yeon-woo's deep abyss, they would quickly draw a line and show disgust, calling her 'scary' and 'crazy' just because her behavior was a little different from theirs.
My fingertips turned cold.
I wanted to put my fingers on the keypad right now and write a sharp reply to wipe this disgusting group from Yeon-woo's side forever.
A destructive impulse arose to smash all these fake relationships with my own hands and drag her into an isolated world where only I existed.
Just as I was about to press the send button on the chat window.
Yeon-woo, who was sleeping with her head on my lap, tossed and turned with a groan.
A pale, bloodless face drenched in cold sweat.
I remembered her reddened eyes from earlier today, when she had ruined her presentation miserably and was hiding in an empty bathroom stall, holding onto my clothes like a lifeline and crying sorrowfully.
What if, tomorrow morning, Yeon-woo barely opened her eyes and checked this terrible text from the only friend she trusted and relied on most?
What if she had to face these cruel letters that treated her as a 'scary crazy bitch who needs to go to a mental hospital'?
Yeon-woo's mentality, already tattered from her reputation being perfectly ruined today, might completely shatter because of this one text.
It wasn't the time yet.
Her soul was like glass, too fragile for her to endure the cold violence and hatred of this world with her bare body.
Until these fake relationships clinging to her side fell away on their own, and until I perfectly severed her world and settled her completely into my arms, Yeon-woo must not be hurt by this cruel truth.
I calmed my trembling fingers, which were shaking with rage, and pressed down on the two messages Ji-min had sent. Then, I quietly touched the 'Delete' button.
Ji-min's disgusting texts disappeared from the screen cleanly, leaving no trace.
Even if Yeon-woo wakes up tomorrow morning, she will never know the terrible fact that the friend she cherished treated her like a crazy person.
She will just feel a little sad and hurt, thinking that her friend is avoiding her contact for some reason.
And it will be my sole privilege in this world to dig into the gaps of that sadness and anxiety, to hold her tenderly and comfort her.
"It's a relief, Yeon-woo-ya. That I saw it first."
I whispered lowly, pressing my lips close to the ear of the deeply sleeping Yeon-woo.
I will protect you from all the wounds and contempt in the world.
Your ordinary and unstable daily life will be erased cleanly like a white blank page.
The more this cruel world tries to isolate you by pointing fingers and calling you crazy, the more I will tenderly cover your eyes and ears, letting you see only the most beautiful things in the world.
Tomorrow, you will resent me as a vicious senior again, believing that I am controlling you, and you will struggle to reign endlessly above me.
"Yeon-woo-ya, I love you."
After kissing her pale, bloodless neck hotly, I lifted my head again and stared at the white screen of the laptop.
And I began to carefully stack up the black bricks, one by one, to build a sanctuary that would hide Yeon-woo from the world's gaze.