The Anonymous Post
My hands trembled as I stared at the anonymous bulletin board.
“What is this…?”
I’d never known that being this shocked could leave you completely speechless.
“What the hell…”
They didn’t know a single thing about my situation. Not my relationship with Kim Soyeong, not how I’d gotten tangled up with Kim Dayeong—nothing. Yet the anonymous users on the screen were freely rewriting my misery and consuming it like entertainment.
I clicked refresh dozens of times. Only after morning arrived did the screen finally display a notice that the post had been deleted.
“It’s… gone?”
But it was far too late to clean anything up. The post had been up from dawn until morning—plenty of people had already seen it. Hiding names with initials didn’t matter; rumors spread instantly anyway.
“Anyone can tell it’s me…”
I couldn’t trust anyone. The only person who would enjoy seeing my reputation dragged through the mud and me thoroughly isolated—the one who would delight most in watching me crawl alone through the filth—was Kim Dayeong.
You again?
“…I did everything you told me to.”
I came when you called. I stripped when you ordered it. I spread my legs when you demanded it. So why are you tormenting me like this again? Because I didn’t go to the officetel? Just because it was inconvenient to do it there?
I stood in front of the closet. In the mirror, my eyes were swollen red. The sharp, upturned eyes had gone limp and droopy, my eyebrows sagging. I looked like I’d burst into tears at the slightest touch.
“Kim Dayeong……”
Just saying her name made rage surge through me. I had to go confront her right now. Ask if she was the one who did it. Ask why she was pushing me this far.
I tried to calm my pounding heart. Deep breaths didn’t help.
At the entrance, I noticed the shoes neatly lined up facing the door—Soyeong’s habit of arranging them so they’d be easy to slip on when leaving. It was how she liked things. Every time I saw traces of her habits still lingering, longing stabbed painfully at my chest.
I forced my small feet into the shoes and stepped out the door.
Stay calm. Don’t let anything show. I didn’t see anything. So just act natural, like usual.
I repeated the mantra to myself, hypnotizing my own mind as I entered the company lobby.
The moment I stepped inside, eyes from every direction snapped toward me at once.
It wasn’t my imagination. The white noise that usually filled the lobby drained away like a receding tide, replaced by whispers. Sideways glances, smirks hidden behind hands, mocking murmurs mixed into the air.
Why do they look away the second our eyes meet?
In front of the elevator, I clutched my bag tightly to my chest and lowered my head. My shoulders instinctively hunched. My arms gripping the bag were rigid with tension. I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I stood there like a guilty person.
“That’s her from the board, right?”
“So the rumor was true?”
“Look at how she’s dressed—like she wants everyone to see the lines.”
“She seemed so quiet, but damn.”
“I knew there was something off about her.”
The voices were low, but they sounded like they were mocking me right next to my ear.
The shoulders I’d forced upright shrank again. I hugged my bag tighter. My knuckles turned white, then began to tremble violently.
My heart pounded wildly. The sound of it beating inside my chest was so loud I was terrified they could all hear it—hear how scared I was, how badly I wanted to run away right now.
People’s eyes raked over my entire body. From my face down to my clothes, my waist, my legs. Even though I was fully dressed, I felt stripped bare. Cold, sticky gazes clung to my back.
Stop looking. Why are you staring?
If I stood here any longer, I felt like I’d dry up and stick to the floor like a corpse. I felt like a sideshow attraction.
I wanted to say no, that I wasn’t that kind of person, but my throat was blocked and nothing came out. I only bit down hard on my parched lips. My eyes grew hot; I forced strength into them. I’m not weak.
If I stayed like this, I really would harden in place. I forced my stiff legs to move, avoiding the crowd. The emergency exit—I had to get to the emergency exit.
The moment I threw open the emergency door and rushed inside, cool, stale air hit me all at once.
“Haa…… haa……”
My legs gave out and I slid down the wall. My grip failed; the bag tumbled across the floor. Logic told me to pick it up, but I didn’t even have the strength to move a single finger. I pulled my knees to my chest, buried my face in them, and gasped for breath.
My heart hammered so hard it shook my whole body.
I’d thought I could endure this. I’d believed that if I just acted natural, it would be dismissed as ordinary gossip. The price was brutal.
In the dim stairwell, only the green emergency light flickered like a guide telling me to come up.
I couldn’t take the elevator. The suffocating stares made me feel like I’d vomit; I covered my mouth.
I wasn’t as strong as I’d thought. It felt like I’d be crushed under the weight of other people’s malice and suffocate to death right here.
“I have to go up…”
I couldn’t break down here. I had to see Kim Dayeong.
I grabbed my bag, used the wall for support, and stood. With every step up the stairs, my calves burned and my breathing grew ragged. Sweat dripped from my forehead down to my chin.
The stairs seemed endless. Still, this was better than being socially executed inside an elevator under everyone’s pressure.
When I finally reached the floor where Kim Dayeong was, sweat beaded on my forehead. I pushed open the high-floor emergency door and was stabbed by blinding white light. A luxurious, gleaming corridor stretched out before me—completely different from where I’d just been.
“Haa… haa…”
I leaned against the wall to catch my breath. Had I overdone it?
While I stood there dazed, staring at the floor, a familiar voice spoke.
“What are you doing? Are you training your stamina now too?”
Kim Dayeong, who looked like she’d just stepped off the elevator, asked.
“Kim Dayeong…”
“Wow, no manners at all.”
She raised an eyebrow slightly.
“You’re even dropping the ‘unnie’ now.”
She looked incredulous, wearing that hypocritical face that pretended she knew nothing.
I dragged my unsteady legs forward until I stood right in front of her. My fingers curled into trembling fists as I spat out in a cold, frozen voice,
“You… you did it, didn’t you?”
My words stuttered between ragged breaths.
“Haa… You posted it, right?”
“Posted what?”
“The board post. Did you upload it?”
“Hmm…”
Kim Dayeong glanced at the empty air for a moment, then lightly curled the corner of her mouth upward.
“Ah, that post?”
She knew. My clenched fists shook violently. How could she be so calm? She said she liked me, yet this was her reaction? I bit the soft flesh inside my mouth, clinging to the faint possibility that it wasn’t her, then asked again.
“Did you……?”
“Mmm.”
The air felt impossibly heavy, pressing down on my body. Kim Dayeong tilted her head with an innocent expression and answered indifferently.
“And if I did?”
I stared at her in hollow disbelief, then let out a hollow laugh. Right. She’d always been this kind of person.
Something inside my head that had been desperately holding onto reason snapped.
The anger had already reached its limit.
Slap—!
The sound of a slap echoed through the corridor. When I came to my senses, Dayeong’s head was turned to the side. A red mark was rising on her pale cheek. My palm burned like it had been scorched, but I felt no regret.
“You evil bitch!”
I regretted not hitting her harder.
“How could you!?”
My voice trembled pathetically.
“How could you do this to me… I did everything you told me to!”
“……Ah.”
Kim Dayeong slowly turned her head back.
“Is this because of the officetel?! Because I didn’t go?!”
“Yeah.”
She answered far too easily.
“You should’ve listened properly, then.”
“Crazy bitch.”
The curse slipped out before I could stop it.
“You’re actually insane.”
“Mm. I am crazy.”
Kim Dayeong touched her own cheek. She slowly caressed the reddened skin with her fingertips, then slanted her lips into a smile.
“Let’s just say I went crazy over you.”
“……”
“And the way you curse… it’s sexy.”
It was obvious mockery. She licked her lips with her tongue, as if savoring the lingering sensation of the slap.
“Why did you do it?”
I wanted to know the reason, yet at the same time I didn’t. I couldn’t hold it back anymore and the tears finally burst out. They streamed down my dry cheeks and trembled at the tip of my chin.
“Do you even know what kind of situation I’m in right now? People whispering and staring—do you know how I felt in that lobby……?”
My throat closed up; I couldn’t speak. Dayeong’s shoes stepped so close that my breath touched them.
“Good for you.”
“What?”
“Anyway, you only have me by your side now.”
Our eyes met in the middle.
“No one’s going to talk to you anymore, are they?”
“……”
Her eyes were smiling.
“Because you’re just a filthy cumrag who spreads her legs for me.”
My stomach dropped. I tried to step back, but she grabbed my shoulder hard enough to crush it and wouldn’t let go. Her fingers dug deeper.
“How… how can you say that?”
“Why?”
Kim Dayeong tilted her head.
“I think it’s great. This was always going to happen. You might as well just accept it comfortably.”
It… hurts a little. Kim Dayeong narrowed her eyes and grabbed the back of my head.
“Agh—!”
“Stop pretending you’re hurt and just stay buried on the office sofa. You can’t do anything without me anyway.”
“You’re the one making sure I can’t!”
With my head still trapped in her grip, I shouted at her with enough force to bore a hole through her.
“You’re the one who made sure I have nowhere to go, who drove everyone away from me. You’re the one who made my life hell, Kim Dayeong!”
The resentful scream echoed down the corridor.
“Yeah. You’re right. So what?”
She leaned in until our lips were almost touching and whispered softly.
“Is that a problem?”