Part 1 - Fake Leash(6)
Part 1 - Fake Leash(6)
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was a splitting headache as if my skull were being cracked open.
"Ugh...."
A groan leaked out from between my cracked lips.
My whole body felt heavy, as if I had been beaten, and my stomach was cold, hard, and cramping.
As I forced my heavy eyelids open, the ceiling of my familiar studio apartment came into blurry view.
And the next moment, the events from yesterday morning's major presentation rushed into my head like a tidal wave.
'Why is he like that? Is he crazy?'
'Why are "depravity" and "pleasure" suddenly appearing in the presentation content?'
The cold mockery of my peers, their contemptuous gazes, and my own shameful body that had lost control and flushed red in front of dozens of eyes.
As every one of those sensations came vividly back to life, my heart pounded at an abnormal speed, and cold sweat poured down.
Reflexively, I covered both ears and curled up.
It was an auditory hallucination.
There was clearly no one in my room right now, but the voices of dozens of people whispering were buzzing in my ears.
"No, no... It was because I was tired. I just made a mistake, that's all."
I bit my trembling lips and forced the hallucinations away.
The voices that had been ringing like tinnitus scattered and gradually subsided.
That's right, who am I? I'm Jung Yeon-woo, the most competent and diligent student in the Korean Literature department.
There's no way my perfect reputation could be completely shattered by a single happening yesterday.
It's just that I've been suffering from stress because I haven't been able to sleep while fixing this damn sunbae's novel lately.
I kicked off the blanket and neurotically pushed my upper body up.
Glancing toward the kitchen where the sound was coming from, I saw the back of Do-hee sunbae, who was carefully adjusting the gas stove.
Cha Do-hee, who used to work me like a slave, had been guarding my side all night and preparing breakfast.
"Sunbae."
At my cracked voice, sunbae stiffened in surprise.
She hurriedly turned off the gas and looked back at me with a bloodless face.
Dark circles were sunken under her eyes, and her usually neat black hair was disheveled.
"Ye, Yeon-woo-ya. You're awake? How's your stomach? You cried until you were exhausted and fell asleep... Do you want some warm water?"
Seeing sunbae approach me, unable to settle, I felt the despair that had been crushing me all day yesterday being replaced by a strange sense of superiority.
That's right, my world hasn't collapsed.
Even if a few peers mocked me, what does that matter?
Cha Do-hee, the most perfect and arrogant woman in our department, whom everyone looks up to, is trembling at my feet right now, watching my mood.
This woman's weakness was held in my grasp.
"Not water, give me my phone."
I tilted my chin arrogantly. Sunbae hurriedly grabbed my smartphone from the table with both hands and offered it to me politely.
I unlocked the screen and habitually tapped the CocoaTalk icon.
'......Huh?'
For a moment, I doubted my eyes wandering over the screen.
From yesterday afternoon until now, my CocoaTalk conversation list was strangely quiet.
In particular, there were no notifications on the chat window of Ji-min, whom I prided myself on being the closest to in the world.
I flicked my finger to open Ji-min's chat window.
Our last conversation was yesterday morning, just before the presentation, with a short cheer from Ji-min: 'Yeon-woo-ya, good luck with the presentation!'.
I caused that disaster and ran out of the lecture hall, so how could there not be a single contact until now?
If it were the normal Ji-min, it would have been normal for her to have left dozens of texts and missed calls, asking, 'Hey, are you okay?', 'What's wrong?'.
"......Why hasn't Ji-min contacted me?"
At my muttered words, sunbae, who was reading my mood, carefully opened her mouth.
"Ah, you were having such a hard time yesterday... I put your phone on silent so you wouldn't wake up if anyone contacted you. Maybe Ji-min saw that you looked so sensitive after ruining your presentation yesterday, and she didn't want to disturb your time to think alone, so she was being considerate?"
I nodded blankly at sunbae's gentle explanation.
That's right, Ji-min cares about me.
When I was holed up in the bathroom yesterday, writhing in shame, she probably decided to avoid the situation and wait instead of rashly contacting me and hurting my pride.
"True, what would she even say to me right now? She'd just be walking on eggshells."
I tried to shake off the uneasy feeling and threw my phone onto the blanket.
But from deep within my chest, a very faint anxiety was rising.
A chilling sensation that something was going terribly wrong, that the air around me was slowly turning into a vacuum.
To suppress that anxiety, I decided to trample on this woman crouching in front of me.
"Sunbae."
"Yes, Yeon-woo-ya."
"The manuscript edits I talked about yesterday, did you finish them all?"
"Ah... that, you were in so much pain yesterday, I was nursing you, so I only wrote a little...."
"Are you kidding me right now?!"
I shouted neurotically and kicked the bed sheet.
"I told you to stay up all night and fix the feeling of that scene! Who do you think caused me to ruin my presentation yesterday? It's because I couldn't sleep cleaning up after that trash manuscript you wrote. But you're making excuses about nursing me and putting off the manuscript?"
"I, I'm sorry, Yeon-woo-ya. I was really wrong. I'll fix it right now. So please don't be angry......."
At my verbal abuse, sunbae hunched her shoulders and trembled.
Seeing that terrified expression, that posture of complete submission to me, my heart, which had been racing with anxiety, calmed down as if it were a lie.
That's right, people in the world might misunderstand me, but this woman, at least, is in the palm of my hand.
Because this woman is my possession, who has to fix novels as I tell her to and pant as I tell her to.
"Turn on the laptop quickly. I'll give feedback from the side."
"Okay, I understand... Ah, drink this first before you do. It'll be good for your stomach."
Sunbae hurriedly got up from her seat and brought a silver thermos.
Click.
The moment the thermos opened, my brain, which had been holding onto reason, went into delirium.
The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood up, my lower abdomen tingled, and the muscles on the inside of my thighs spasmed against my will, and my underwear began to get wet.
"Ah...... ugh."
It was just a simple black tea scent.
My brain was sounding alarm bells like crazy about how abnormal this situation was, but my thoroughly trained nervous system was vividly summoning yesterday's pleasure and depravity as soon as it smelled the scent.
My breathing became ragged, and my vision blurred.
The feeling that I was lusting like a beast dominated my whole body.
"What's wrong, Yeon-woo-ya? Are you in a lot of pain?"
Sunbae approached and gently wrapped her arms around my shoulders.
Sunbae's body scent and the black tea scent mixed, paralyzing the tip of my nose.
'How about I pin this insufferable bitch down, crush her virginity, and make her wail under me?'
No. I am not such a beast. I shouldn't do such a thing humanly.
Suppressing the urge to push her down like a beast right now, I grabbed sunbae's collar with trembling hands.
"This stuff... haa... get it away. Right now, open the laptop, and read that monologue of the noblewoman being humiliated that I assigned yesterday out loud."
My command was supposed to be authoritative, but because of my panting, it sounded like I was begging.
But sunbae did not defy my weak authority.
She nodded slowly with eyes full of tears, then opened the laptop and began to read the sentences she had written in a trembling voice.
Leaning my forehead on sunbae's shoulder, I became crazily immersed in the words flowing from her lips.
The mockery of my peers, the existence of a friend who wouldn't contact me, the auditory hallucinations, and the anxiety were all meaningless in this small room.
Only the trembling voice and body scent of this woman, who was obeying at my feet, was the only world I had.
Every time the obscene words that sunbae stuttered out licked the inside of my ears, the empty space left by Ji-min and the air of the lecture hall that had been stirring my head were erased.
That's right, no matter how the trash in the outside world tears me down, what does that matter?
In the end, it is that high-and-mighty Cha Do-hee who is holding me up like a god in my small room, revealing her own shame and crying.
I bit down hard on sunbae's slender neck.
Then, rubbing my cheek against sunbae's neck, I inhaled her body scent, which pierced the tip of my nose, deep into my lungs.
"Put some emotion into it, read it more explicitly. Until I'm satisfied."
At my command, clear droplets fell from sunbae's eyes and wet the back of my hand.
The sensation of those warm and helpless tears felt like the most certain proof that I hadn't gone crazy and that I held the control.
Ah, Sunbae.
You seem the most beautiful when you're crying under me.