Yandere Warning Signs That Start From the Talking Stage (4)
The massage had left Riyeon so limp that she toppled over and fell asleep on the spot, and after going to all that trouble of washing up, I ended up sleeping right along with her.
The way she clung to my arm should have been uncomfortable, yet somehow it wasn't bothersome in the slightest. Riyeon always said she liked my scent—but I didn't mind hers either.
The place was small, so we kept bumping into each other whenever either of us shifted in our sleep. No matter who drifted into whom, one of us would instinctively adjust so we could nestle into a more comfortable tangle. Riyeon especially loved throwing her leg over my stomach. And pressing her lips flush against my arm while she slept. Every time I drifted half-awake, I'd feel that soft touch on my arm, glance down, and find her face buried against me just like that.
Cute.
Once she was up and moving, she was a walking time bomb whose next words or actions no one could predict—but there was no denying she was a real beauty. Anyway. We slept some more.
We got up past one in the morning and walked over to the Chinese place near the house for fried rice, jjamppong, and sweet-and-sour pork. It was one of those hidden-gem hole-in-the-wall spots, so Riyeon ate with pure satisfaction and said we should come again next time.
Next time, huh…
This girl was already fully planning on coming back to my place. For some reason, I believed that with Riyeon it wouldn't be an empty promise or polite talk—it would be real. The first "next time" I'd actually trusted since entering the workforce.
"People who like NTR are either hardcore masochists drowning in defeatism, or people who've actually done that kind of thing themselves."
I'd suggested a walk because going straight home would just put us back to sleep, and that was the line Riyeon dropped out of nowhere as we walked. The sheer extremity of the claim left me blank for a second. First, that she could even arrive at that conclusion—and second, that she could say it at full volume in broad daylight with people around—both shocks rattled my brain.
"Listen, oppa."
"Y-yeah… but maybe keep it a little quieter."
"Why? Are you embarrassed of me?"
"Some NTR addict walking by might overhear and try to start a debate. I hate getting reality-checked in public."
"Ugh, I hate that. Okay, I'll be careful like you said."
I hated how I was already learning how to handle Riyeon like this.
Applying tint to her lips, she whispered with deadly seriousness.
"This era has way too many NTR works. And a flood of NTR works means they make money."
"Supply and demand. Basics."
"Exactly! There's demand, so supply happens. So why is there demand in the first place?"
"From the troll posts online, I figure the thrills of moral transgression are the turn-on."
And having this conversation outdoors right now was the embarrassment turn-on. I really hoped Riyeon would figure that point out sooner rather than later.
"Moral transgression, my ass!"
"Calm down. Calm down."
"It's just getting off on ethical taboos. And that manifests as the masochistic urge to have what's yours taken away."
Getting off on ethical taboos. Put that way, it actually landed.
"So it's an instinctive turn-on, basically? I mean, even I catch myself looking when I run into incest-type doujinshi or novels."
"Oppa, you like incest stuff?"
"Yeah. You?"
Afraid I'd stepped on a landmine, I went for bold. Damn it—admitting it myself was mortifying. But the fact that I felt shame meant I wasn't a pervert. Perverts don't get embarrassed.
"I'm only into brother-sister stuff. Nothing else does anything for me."
"Got it."
I was into every flavor of incest material, but I kept my mouth shut. No point advertising and risking that same look she gave NTR fans.
"I figure incest stuff is just a matter of taste."
"Isn't NTR the same?"
"That's different."
It felt completely arbitrary, but fine—I'd hear her out. Two people who hated NTR venting unfiltered criticism to purge their trauma; nothing wrong with that.
"Oppa, you watch a fair amount of porn, right?"
"These days I mostly read doujinshi."
"Porn has stories too. Especially the 'bang the guy's girlfriend through the wall' or 'just some married woman' types—there's a ton of those, yeah?"
"Sure."
"But we don't get mad at those. Why is that?"
A deep question. Riyeon had a gift for laying things out logically—or at least in a way that was easy to follow. Nonsense or not. I was slipping further under the spell of her words, so I threw in the appropriate nods.
"Because the reason we watch porn in the first place isn't the story—it's the pure extract of the sex scenes."
"Yes! Exactly that."
Riyeon latched onto my arm and crowed the answer. She took my hand naturally and pressed her chest against me, and the sheer volume of it registered hard. Yes. Exactly this. Too much for the talking stage, maybe—but a thoroughly positive sensation.
"I think most NTR addicts just want to watch hot sex scenes too."
"Oh?"
"All that moral-transgression talk is pure bullshit. The perspective and the character you immerse in are completely different. When we watch porn, we don't project onto the husband or boyfriend of the woman getting railed. We just sink into how hot the scene is. How intense the direction is."
"Direction, meaning…?"
"The joining of man and woman has to be clearly visible, the woman's reactions have to be dripping and tight, and the moans especially have to be pretty without sounding too fake…"
Nearly five minutes vanished into a crash course on porn direction. A pure-love girl—someone who pursued pure love even in real life—was this thoroughly versed in filthy content. Enough to initiate dirty talk with her talking-stage guy first. Honestly, not bad. Having a dirty conversation with a pretty girl—my talking-stage girl, no less—felt like I was dreaming.
"So most NTR addicts just find the art style hot and the setup itself hot the way incest is hot, and they slap the label 'moral transgression' on that category of turn-on. That's all."
"Wow. Getting pretty serious."
But incest was the same kind of turn-on with moral-transgression piled on top of it, wasn't it?
"So if you ask the majority, the way you ask incest fans—what would you do if it happened in real life?—they'd go, 'Oh, no way. Fiction is fiction.'"
Hm. So she called incest fans addicts too. I absolutely could never show Riyeon my search history.
"I get it. Most of them just watch it the way they watch porn sex scenes, and the NTR setup layered on top just makes it a little hotter?"
"Right. That's why even artists with god-tier art styles sometimes only draw NTR."
"But why only NTR?"
Riyeon answered with perfect simplicity.
"Because pure love is hard."
"Pure love is hard?"
"Pure love has to make readers feel that fluttery, warm, fuzzy feeling while also showing results through the protagonist's growth. Plus you have to sell the plausibility of why they like each other. Without that, people just go 'mindless, hopeless affection' and bounce."
"Now that you say it, that tracks."
It did. Hell, even I wanted to know why Riyeon had fallen for me this hard. I knew she genuinely liked me, and I still wanted the reason.
"But if a writer who's good at that pure-love immersion writes NTR, even the NTR addicts scream curses and run for the hills. In other words, those people only want the sex scenes plastered on top of an NTR setup. Flip it around and the writer is just selling sex."
"Just selling sex?"
"Nobody cares about that writer's story. They don't even project onto the characters—just a 'go fuck anyone, I don't care' mindset. But make the fucking insanely hot. Then I'll pay for it."
"That's kind of sad… The writer probably agonized and worked hard on that story…"
"They built it specifically to sell that one part, so what more do they want?"
I'd have to gently correct this later. Judging other people's work, their craft, and their entire industry by your own standards was a dangerous and rude habit—I hoped the day would come when I could teach Riyeon that. Saying it now, while she was still wound up about NTR, would just get me "that's the market" and "they chose this path themselves" type rebuttals. Obvious as daylight.
I was starting to understand. I disliked NTR. Riyeon loathed it.
"You said you masturbate to NTR doujinshi too."
"That's…! These days even pure-love manga just coast on mindless 'I love you's, so I can't get immersed…"
See? One casual jab and she flailed, unable to answer properly. You didn't have to like something, but you ought to respect it. It was the realm of fiction, not reality. Pushing too hard wouldn't help, so I decided to leave it there and move on.
"Alright, alright—so? At the start you said people who like NTR are defeatist masochists or people who've done it in real life. Why?"
"Those types are the real deal."
Riyeon's eyes turned vicious. Sharper and more sinister than anything she'd worn at the office.
"People who want NTR even in real life."
"Even in real life?"
"When you're hunting porn on social media, you see those 'invite a guy' or 'invite a girl' posts, right? Those people are the real thing. Masochists who get off watching their partner pant under someone else and then jerk off to the defeat."
Her lips pressed tight; the faint red around her eyes said she was close to retching.
"And people who've actually been with a friend's girlfriend, a friend's boyfriend, a married man, a married woman—of course they get off immersing themselves completely in the side that takes, or watching from that position. Sick bastards. I hope they all die."
"Riyeon?"
"I genuinely don't know why they live. Potential criminals who wreck other couples and other people's homes."
"Riyeon."
"Because of those bastards…!"
As she grew rougher by the second, I caught her and wrapped my arms around her from behind.
"You got too worked up, our Riyeon."
"……"
"Yeah. I get that you hate NTR and that you've analyzed it hard. But don't sink so deep into it that you forget I'm right here next to you."
Cringe. Unbelievably cringe. I'm right here next to you? We'd been talking for less than a week.
"…Yeah. Okay."
And it worked?!
"I'm glad you're here, oppa. My eye really is perfect."
And from there she went straight into self-praise?
"Oppa."
"Yeah."
"Thank you."
"It's nothing."
Tight—Riyeon gripped the arms of my back-hug hard.
"God, I seriously want to kidnap this oppa, lock him in my house, and keep other bitches from even getting near him."
"Excuse me?"
"And install home cams so even when I'm at work I can watch what he's doing from the office the whole time."
"Excuse me…?"
"Haa…"
She turned to look at me with damp eyes. A gaze clouded with melancholy—but inside those pupils she was definitely weighing whether or not to go through with the kidnapping and confinement. When I slowly shook my head no, Riyeon clicked her tongue with open regret.
"Well. Today's not the only day."
I really couldn't afford to let my guard down around Riyeon for even a second.