The Alleyway
"Mmph—! Ngh! Junhyuk, wait……!"
Her back and shoulders were pressed hard against the damp cement wall. Tucked behind a row of shuttered storefronts, far beyond the reach of the streetlights, the woman gasped for breath in ragged bursts.
"Inyoung, hold still for me."
"Ah, the wall's so cold…… it hurts, be gentle……."
"That's what makes it hot. Haah."
The shoulders of her off-shoulder top bounced and slipped. The swell of her breasts, bared above the bra, jolted in time with the violent thrusts of Junhyuk's hips.
Her skirt was bunched up around her waist, and through the gap of her thin panties, twisted aside, his rigid length drove into her without pause.
Squelch. Creak.
Into the damp air of the alley spread the raw scent of flesh and the wet, rhythmic sound of friction.
"Ha—this is so good. Doing it outside makes it even better, right?"
"Hnngh…… Junhyuk, your voice, they'll hear us……."
"So what if someone does? Shut up and squeeze tighter."
To smother her moans, Junhyuk shoved two thick fingers between Inyoung's parted lips.
His sweat-slick fingers churned through her mouth at will. A salty taste spread across her tongue, and drool leaked from the corners of her lips she couldn't keep closed, trailing down her chin.
What if someone comes?
It was a back alley behind the shops, where a drunk could stagger in at any moment. Every single footstep, every distant blare of a horn, sent her heart plummeting.
Inyoung's eyes darted along the wall above them. No camera in sight.
"No CCTV, haah…… checked already. Hah, all of it."
There was a reason Junhyuk had dragged her into this particular alley.
"Haang! Junhyuk, right there, ngh……!"
Inyoung had thrown her head back, gasping, when it happened.
A shadow, weaving unsteadily, brushed past the mouth of the alley.
"Mmph……!"
Inyoung flinched and clutched at Junhyuk's shoulders. Below, her body clamped down reflexively, hard.
A thick groan burst from Junhyuk's lips.
Humming a tune, the drunk passed by without so much as a glance down the alley.
"Haa, see that? Told you…… ngh, nobody's coming."
Step. Step.
Footsteps echoed at the alley's mouth, steady and regular. Drowned out by the sounds of their bodies, neither of them noticed.
A long shadow fell across the edge of Inyoung's vision.
A person.
Her eyes flew wide. She twisted in shock and, purely on instinct, clamped her teeth down hard on the fingers stirring up her mouth.
"Aagh! Fuck, are you insane?"
"Mmph! Mmmph!"
"Hey, get your teeth off me. What's wrong with you?"
Junhyuk mistook her frantic squirming for wild lust. He snapped his hips forward, burying himself to the deepest point of her soaked passage.
Squelch, creak, creak—
"Just hold still, I'm almost there."
"Mmph, no, someone's—haang! Over there……!"
"No what, fuck. Biting me like this and now what."
Junhyuk yanked his bitten fingers from her mouth.
"Hahk! S-someone's coming……! Ngh, ah!"
Inyoung shoved at his chest with both hands. Junhyuk's face twisted at the throbbing pain in his fingers, and he finally whipped his head around.
A man was walking toward them, unbothered, three or four steps away.
Inyoung's head dropped instantly. Her off-shoulder top had slid down below her collarbone, her lower half a rumpled mess. Caught half-naked, moaning on it, right in front of another man. Heat flared from her cheeks up the back of her neck, burning like it might split her skin.
Ah…… it's over.
"What the hell's with this bastard."
But the man didn't stop walking.
He didn't look at them. Not at the pair gasping against the wall, not at the two half-undressed bodies tangled together—he spared them as little attention as trash lying by the roadside.
The hem of the man's coat brushed close enough to graze Junhyuk's back.
Inyoung's and Junhyuk's eyes stared blankly after that indifferent retreating figure. The sticky, feverish heat of the alley went cold in an instant, as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over it.
……What the hell?
There was no shock in that stride, no sly voyeur's curiosity either. It wasn't that he'd seen them and looked away, pretending he hadn't. It was the cold gait of someone who had judged them not worth a glance in the first place.
Her shame flipped, in a heartbeat, into a raw and stinging humiliation.
Her bare breasts, her pussy—all laid out right in front of him, and he just walked past.
Does that bastard not even see me as a woman?
Her pride was peeled away in one long, cruel strip.
Inyoung shoved hard against Junhyuk's chest.
"Haah…… hah, stop. I'm not in the mood anymore."
"Hey, Inyoung, I'm almost—"
"I said forget it! Move!"
Spinning away, she yanked her twisted panties roughly back up and patted down her crumpled skirt. The warm fluid trickling down the inside of her thigh made her skin crawl.
Junhyuk, left with his arousal nowhere to go, huffed and dragged his zipper up with a rough jerk.
"Ah, fucking hell. Worst timing ever."
"He saw us and just walked away."
"Hold on."
Junhyuk lifted his chin and bellowed at the man's retreating back.
"Hey!"
The man didn't turn.
The blood rose up Junhyuk's neck.
"Hey, you. You gonna stop right there or what?"
"What are you doing? You're just gonna let him walk?"
"No, seriously, is that bastard deaf or what."
There wasn't so much as a speck of hesitation in the footsteps ringing down the alley. Total, absolute disregard.
Junhyuk fished blindly into his pocket, pulled out whatever his hand closed on, and hurled it. His car keys smacked dead into the back of the man's head.
Thwack!
With a dull knock, the keys clattered and rolled across the asphalt.
Only then did the man's footsteps stop.
He didn't reach up to touch the spot where he'd been hit. He didn't look down at the keys at his feet.
He just stood there.
Let's see you ignore this. Yeah?
Junhyuk swaggered closer. Behind him, Inyoung stood with her arms crossed, watching with venom in her eyes.
The man slowly turned around.
Junhyuk stepped right up to him and looked him over, top to bottom. Black hair falling over his forehead. A good head shorter than Junhyuk himself.
Weak little bastard, anyone could tell at a glance.
Junhyuk let out a cruel smirk and seized a fistful of the man's shirt collar, hauling him up in one yank.
"Hey. Where the hell were your eyes pointing?"
"……"
"Watched someone get theirs, did it get you off? Huh?"
The man didn't resist. No confusion, no fear. Held by the collar, he simply gazed at Junhyuk, calm and steady. Not even the faintest tremor of breath escaped him.
"What, your mouth sewn shut? Quit staring and answer me."
Grabbed by the collar and twisted like this, any normal person would have been begging in terror or thrashing to break free. Junhyuk's brow furrowed hard as he glared straight into the man's face.
And his eyes met the man's.
His breath caught in his throat.
Jet-black pupils. No—not black at all. There were no pupils. Eyes with the light gone out of them. Dead eyes.
A chill crawled up his spine. His grip on the collar began, slowly, to loosen.
Circle lenses? Or some guy strung out on drugs?
His mind scrambled to fold it all back inside the borders of common sense, but his skin was sending an entirely different signal.
That is not a person. Run.
To crush down the swelling fear, Junhyuk pulled a folding knife from the back pocket of his jeans.
Click!
The blade snapped out. Trying to hide his trembling hand, Junhyuk shook the man's collar roughly.
"You—you little fuck…… why the hell are your eyes like that, huh? You want me to stick you? Huh?"
His voice cracked, ugly and hoarse. The instant he realized he was stammering, cold sweat broke out and ran down his temples.
The man didn't so much as blink at the blade. Junhyuk was the one holding the knife—and somehow, he was also the one cornered.
Maybe I should just let him go.
His knees had gone weak. Strength drained from the wrist holding the knife, and the tip sank quietly. A cowardly bargain flickered through his head—just write it off as stepping on one lunatic and move on—
"Choi Junhyuk!"
Clutching her shoulder bag to her chest, Inyoung glared at the man and shrieked.
"He kept staring at us!"
A shameless lie, spat out to bury her own humiliation. Her voice climbed another octave, shrill and vicious.
"He walked right past while staring at what we were doing. I'm telling you, he's a total pervert."
"You saw him?"
The man said nothing.
"I said he saw! Why are you asking!"
"Scared?"
Inyoung closed the distance with a click of her heels and whispered, driving the wedge home.
Those three words pulled the trigger.
Right, fuck it. She's watching.
His girlfriend's eyes were wide open and fixed on him. If he backed down now, holstered the knife and retreated, he'd be branded for life—the impotent coward who couldn't even hold his head up in front of Inyoung.
Shame swallowed his fear whole. The sagging knife tip rose again, gleaming, aimed at the man's brow. Junhyuk forced the corners of his mouth up into a sneer.
"This bastard's actually lost his mind."
"……"
"Should I dig out these disgusting eyes of yours? Huh?"
The blade pushed in until it hovered right before the man's left eye—close enough to brush the lashes. The steel glinted inches from his face, yet nothing reflected in that eye at all.
Instead, the man's right hand—slipped from his trouser pocket—rose into view.
Junhyuk stiffened, knife still in hand.
"What—what are you doing? Put that hand away, you bastard."
"I said put it away!"
Ignoring Junhyuk's bluster entirely, the man slowly raised his right hand.
Silence settled. Even the noise of the main road beyond the alley seemed to cut off, fading far away.
Junhyuk's eyes tracked, dully, the fingers rising in front of his face.
The man's thumb and middle finger, hovering in the air, came together in a smooth, effortless snap.
Snap.