Shackles
Shackles
My life had been dyed ash-gray ever since that day.
From the moment the sobs, the wails, and the gray incense rose into the air, all the color bled out of everything.
A monochrome that settled over everything like an old black-and-white film, dreary and dim.
─ 'Ha-rin, are you free for a bit today?'
─ 'Sure, Manager. We wrapped up work nicely anyway, so how about grabbing a meal together?'
Through it all, I was always smiling brightly.
Never letting the rising disgust show, always responding with the same easygoing smile as ever.
─ 'Shall we? Ah, but no second round for me. My younger siblings are waiting.'
Predictable, worn-out pretense.
But people liked this mask of mine.
Everyone has countless masks.
Out in the world, I was a kind and cheerful woman.
Sociable, competent, a reasonably capable career woman.
Playing that role drained me emotionally to an extreme degree.
Every time I sensed their lecherous intent and had to pretend I hadn't noticed, I felt something inside me being scraped away.
But I had to endure.
It was a stable life I'd earned through hardship.
From all the grunt work I'd done over the years, I'd learned that office jobs like this were at least easy on the body.
The mental exhaustion couldn't be helped... but at least I could sleep more than in any other line of work.
Right. Compared to my early twenties as a rookie juggling multiple gigs on three hours of sleep a night, this was something I could bear.
Things had improved, after all.
My second sibling, who had needed looking after, had grown up before I knew it and was pulling her own weight.
She'd only just become an adult, but ever since her school days she'd been working part-time and contributing to the household, so the need to grind myself to the bone at work had lessened.
It was something I felt both sorry for and grateful about.
The tangled threads were slowly coming undone.
As I gained more breathing room, I also found the chance to quietly look back at myself.
I felt the monochrome backdrop gradually receding.
But why?
One corner of my heart remained unsettled.
An emptiness, as if a hole had been punched straight through my chest.
Even though things had clearly improved, this inexplicable void only made my thoughts more troubled.
─ 'I love you, unnie!'
─ 'I'm always grateful, noona.'
It wasn't enough to fill it.
Before, a single warm word from my beloved family, their happy smiling faces, had been enough....
But as time passed, I found part of myself growing increasingly dissatisfied.
Why?
I looked into the mirror.
The woman reflected there smiled pleasantly, gazing quietly past the glass.
Whenever my thoughts grew tangled, I would spend a long while staring into the mirror to settle my restless mind.
Staring blankly at myself like this, the clamoring thoughts would calm down, just a little.
It was my own way of steadying my mind.
But sometimes.
─ 'Are you satisfied with this?'
The woman on the other side of the mirror would speak to me.
─ 'Do you really think this is enough, as the price of your youth?'
Just like that, she would ask me, in that same bright tone of voice.
The pattern was always the same.
Sometimes the repertoire varied, but she always threw me a question of the same kind.
To which I would answer:
'Yes. I'm satisfied. I sacrificed myself to bring back my family's smile. That's enough, isn't it?'
And with that, the exchange would end.
The woman would turn her head away with that same smiling face as always.
─ 'Really?'
That was how it was supposed to go.
Yet for some reason, those ash-stained lips moved once more.
─ 'Then why aren't you smiling?'
"...Ah."
I swallowed back the sigh that had slipped out on its own.
When I looked again, the woman in the mirror was staring past the glass with cold eyes, all traces of her smile gone.
*
A cool sensation on her cheek.
When the rough, cold skin of his hand touched her cheek, Kang Ha-rin managed to escape her tangled thoughts and finally face reality.
"Ha-rin. You know, every time I look at you, I think of my mother."
His hand swept once across her cheek.
It was nothing but unpleasant, but she quietly accepted his touch.
It wouldn't change anything anyway.
"She had it harder than anyone, but she always forced a smile to hide it. The feeling... was so similar."
A whisper.
The voice brushing her ears made her thoughts grow muddled.
It was always like this.
He would bring some absurd logic and shake her to the core.
"Whenever I saw my mother, I always thought: 'Why does she live so bottled up like that?' Even though she was probably the one who felt the most stifled."
Even though she had no reason to be shaken.
She could just ignore it, but she couldn't.
"But I realized it after I got older. She was bound. Someone clinging to her ankles was forcing her to endure. For my mother, that someone was me."
Kang Ha-rin looked up at him.
As always, he wore a bitter smirk.
She hated him.
Hated him. Found him despicable.
Yet at the same time, she found herself gradually sinking into his whispers.
"For you, that would be your younger siblings. Isn't that right?"
"....."
"It's okay. You don't have to say it. I know. I know everything."
A warmth spread over her.
Held in his embrace, she kept biting her lips.
"Selfless devotion. The shackles of family force that on you. Blood is thicker than water, after all."
Soon enough, his hands slid suggestively across her chest and thighs.
His breath, so close against her, made her body rise and fall involuntarily.
"But is there any need for that now? The younger sibling you had to look after has started walking her own path. Even if it isn't the right one."
"...Ha-jun, I suppose so."
"Right. Though the two youngest are still left. But do you have to shoulder that burden all by yourself?"
"...I do. I'm the eldest sister."
"Do you really have to? Don't. Push that responsibility onto me. I'll do the enduring for you."
What reason do I have to trust you?
After everything you've done, how could I possibly.
Maybe those feelings showed in her eyes, because he let out a soft, empty laugh.
"You don't trust me? Why?"
"...Why do you think? You..."
"What about me? Where am I lacking? If anything, in this situation, you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone more suited than me."
She didn't want to admit it, but it was the truth.
Even now, it was practically under his protection that the young twins had survived.
If not for that, they might have long since met their end somewhere out there.
"Running away is shameful, but it helps. Especially for someone like you, who's only ever looked straight ahead and charged forward."
"...You'll take my place?"
"Yes. I'll take full responsibility for the twins. They're your siblings, so they'll grow up lovely in the future. So you just pursue your own life. Hand over the heavy burden to me now."
"...."
Kang Ha-rin fell silent.
She pursed her lips and stared at him with wavering eyes.
He was still smiling.
Just like the image of herself in the mirror had done.
Could she trust him?
Well, maybe that wasn't even important.
She didn't need to have faith.
What mattered was that his whispers had made her heart feel lighter.
A faint sense of being able to breathe again.
From that, Kang Ha-rin felt a small sense of liberation.
"...Is that enough? If I do that, can I finally be free?"
"Of course. All you have to do is place all your burdens on me. I'll take responsibility for everything."
Yes. Maybe that was reason enough.
She pressed herself tightly against him.
It wasn't even something you could call agonizing.
Soon enough, Kang Ha-rin burrowed into his arms.
His hands were cold, but his embrace felt more than warm and comfortable to her.
The heartbeat resonating from his bare chest also brought her a sense of stability.
There would be no turning back from this choice.
She had sunk into the swamp, and no matter who she reached out to, her hand would never reach anyone.
But even so, I will accept it willingly.
"Kiss me."
Imprint your trust onto me.
Lifting her head slightly to look up at him, Kang Ha-rin whispered those words.
In response, his lips stretched wide as if about to tear, and he slowly leaned his face in.
—Mwah.
Softly, their mucous membranes touched.
The sensation that had always been nothing but revolting felt different in this moment.
The sticky intertwining of their tongues' fluids gave her a sense of oneness, of finally being connected to him.
It felt good.
But it was a different kind of good from before.
It wasn't the sensation of pleasure being forced upon her; it felt as if rapture was bursting forth from within her heart.
The closed floodgates opened, and her tangled, noisy thoughts were swept cleanly free.
'Yes, set aside the complicated thoughts.'
Let's enjoy the present.
She erased them.
The image of the twins laughing happily.
Kang Ha-jun's face as he patted her on the shoulder in encouragement.
And so, all that remained was his existence.
The man before her eyes.
She drew over his detestable face anew.
─ 'I'll take responsibility for everything.'
Yes, you are my everything now.
I'll sever it all and engrave only you into my heart.
Then, I... won't have to be bound anymore.
—Schlck.
"Hnghk!"
A sharp cry tore from her lips at the sudden intrusion forcing its way inside her.
But even this was a joy.
Kang Ha-rin didn't resist the pleasure that scrambled her brain but accepted it wholeheartedly.
"Ha-rin. My Ha-rin. You know I really, really like you, right?"
Schlick, schlick, schlick, schlick.
He whispered sweetly, gradually accelerating the back-and-forth of his hips.
The more he did, the more she felt a sense of fulfillment, as if her hollow chest was being filled.
Her brain, steeped in pleasure, made her moan involuntarily.
"Hnngh... haah...! Yes...! I... I like you too...!"
She shouted it with sincerity, not as a lie.
As if in return, he licked her chest with his tongue.
The stimulation doubled.
Every time his wet tongue swept over her nipple, she helplessly panted for breath.
As she reached a light climax, her love juices gradually soaked the bedsheet.
Her fluids were unusually thick and viscous.
As if it were her ovulation day.
"Haaahng!"
But that didn't matter.
She didn't care if she got pregnant.
He had said he'd take full responsibility for everything anyway.
Kang Ha-rin spread her legs wider to make it easier for him to thrust, and moved her hips slightly in time with his rhythm.
Maybe this attitude pleased him, because he stopped licking her nipple and showered her with kisses.
The nape of her neck, her chest, her collarbone... red marks were engraved all over her body.
"Our Ha-rin has such pretty feet, too."
He suddenly grabbed both her legs and lifted them up.
Then, as he slowly moved his hips, he abruptly lapped at her foot with his tongue.
"Hnghk! Wh-why are you licking there...!"
"Why? You don't like it?"
"O-of course I don't. It must smell...."
"It does smell, admittedly. But it's subtly addictive."
...Seriously, what an annoying man.
But it wasn't the kind of hatred that made her want to kill him, like before.
Only bashfulness bloomed across Kang Ha-rin's face.
"S-stop licking and just fuck me more."
"So shy. Your reactions are so good, I want to tease you more... but fine. If that's what you want."
He granted her request readily enough.
He climbed on top of her, practically crushing her underneath him.
The position, pressing her down vertically so she couldn't budge an inch, put considerable pressure on her.
But it also brought pleasure alongside it.
A position where their reproductive organs were pressed together in the tightest possible union.
The so-called mating press.
"Hihgk! W-wait, this is...!"
"You asked me to do it like this! So just shut up and take it!"
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Every time his hips bucked, bright-white fireworks burst inside her head.
The world warped.
Under the merciless pounding that showed not a shred of mercy, pain and pleasure took turns scrambling her brain.
"Haaahngk...! Hiiiiihk!"
"I'm about to come! I'm going to shoot it as deep inside as I can!"
He always did that anyway, so why announce it now.
Kang Ha-rin found his declarative manner a bit dumbfounding, but she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist to make it easier to receive his seed.
And then, soon enough.
"Haaaaaaahng...!!"
Something exploded deep inside her.
She felt the sticky, milky-white fluid filling her insides more vividly than ever before.
At the same time, the waves of pleasure swelled like a tidal wave and consumed her mind.
After the thick afterglow, a pleasant sense of fullness remained in her stomach.
"Hahhk... huuuh...."
His seed still gushing out in surges.
The heartbeat resonating from his bare chest pressed against hers.
His warm breath and body heat.
'Now, I'll truly live for myself.'
Within that warmth, Kang Ha-rin closed her eyes in peace.