Department Store (5)
"Jeon Hanbyul. You gonna send it or what?"
"...?"
What is she talking about?
The silence stretched, and Jiwoo's edge only sharpened.
"Ha. Fuck. Just spit it out. What kind of bullshit did you pull this time."
"Uhh...? Wh-what are you talking about... Jiwoo..."
"Fuck. Tell me before I actually kill somebody."
He had definitely sent the video. And yet Jiwoo was talking like she had never received it.
"Hey. What the hell are you doing."
"Uh...? H-hold on..."
Jiwoo wasn't the type to say something that strange for no reason. And it wasn't as if his phone had glitched and failed to deliver the file...
Then... me? Did I...?
Knowing this situation was not going to simply blow over, he frantically opened KakaoTalk and checked the message he had sent—and who he had sent it to.
"..."
He had saved his wife as Jiwoo ♡. So when he typed "Jiwoo" into the search bar, the first name that came up...
wasn't his wife. It was Noona—Baek Jiwoo. He only realized it now.
Regret was already far too late. The video had been sent. It had been marked as read. He had shown his wife distrust, and Iseul's mother something vulgar beyond words.
A mistake hovering right on the brink of self-destruction.
F-first, delete it...!
If there was any silver lining at all—it had been less than five minutes. He slammed Delete for Everyone and scrubbed the video in a panic.
Of course, that only deleted it between Noona and him. She had already seen that he had sent something. She might even have downloaded the video in the meantime. It was nowhere near a perfect erasure.
"Hey. So now you're just straight-up ignoring me?"
"Ah... I'm sorry, honey... I forgot. I didn't send it."
"Ha... Fuck. What am I supposed to do with this bastard?"
Something cracked and splintered on the other end of the line, and just like that they were right back where they had been at the start of the call.
"Hey. Jeon Hanbyul. Stop pulling this dogshit for real. You think I don't know?"
"J-Jiwoo...!"
"Don't flap that whore-dick mouth of yours. Shut it. The stink of a cock that goes around sucking other women's pussies is making me sick."
"..."
Where had it all gone wrong...
What was he supposed to do...
Tears surged up all at once, and before he could stop himself he was crying—right where Jiwoo could hear every sob.
"Hwaaaaang... hhhk..."
"..."
He hadn't wanted her to misunderstand. And yet one stupid mistake had done exactly that... He had sworn he would look only at his wife, that he would live that way—and still, every time his heat hit, he did something irreversible. He was so furious with himself, so bitterly ashamed, that the tears simply broke free.
He knew he was dangerous, strange, out of his mind. But the moment heat came over him, it was like some infantile regression—he lost all judgment and became nothing but a dog in heat, faithful only to instinct. He could not begin to describe how humiliating and hopeless that felt.
"Hey. Jeon Hanbyul."
Jiwoo called his name again, clearly intending to keep pressing him. He wanted to say something—anything—but he was so wretched that every time he tried to speak, his breath caught and nothing came out.
"Kkuhk... hhhnnngh... kkuhk... kkuhk..."
"Hey... are you crying...?"
Only then did Yang Jiwoo seem to realize Hanbyul was actually weeping. Her voice shifted, thick with sudden worry. Just from the sound of it, he could tell how badly she had been thrown off.
"Why... why are you crying..."
"Hhhnnngh... s-hhhk... s-sorry..."
"Hey. Jeon Hanbyul. Stop crying first and talk to me..."
She spoke to him soft and warm, the way a mother soothes a child.
"Is it because I came down on you too hard...? Because I got mad over nothing? No—wait, it definitely wasn't nothing, though... No! Wait. Was I too cold with you? Or is something worrying you? Huh? Huh? Huh? Why won't you say anything—why are you just crying... Say something. Come on."
It went past obsession. There was something unhinged in it.
Just then, one of the department store employees spotted Hanbyul crouched outside the restroom, crying.
"Um... sir... how should I put this... is something the matter...?"
As politely as she could manage, she pulled a tissue she had been saving for herself from her waistband and held it out to him.
"Hhk... th-thank you..."
Jiwoo could hear every word of the exchange.
"YOU FUCKING BITCH!!! Who the hell is that slut hitting on my man right now!? What do you think you're doing when he's crying, you fucking whore!!! Stay the fuck away from someone else's man and get lost!!! I oughta rip those tits off and shove them straight up your goddamn womb!!!"
She spat the words in a machine-gun torrent, but it was an ordinary call—nowhere near loud enough to reach the employee's ears.
"Um... shall I help you up?"
"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. No. Hanbyul. Don't let her help you. Don't take the hand she's offering. Don't hold anyone's hand but mine. Hanbyul, don't take her hand. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't. Don't."
Hanbyul, who had been listening to his wife without a break since the moment he answered the phone, managed—
"Hhk... I-I'm fine... th-thank you..."
—dabbing at his wet eyes with his other hand, bowing his head to the employee before slipping back into the restroom.
"Ah..."
With a look as wistful as if she were watching an old lover, the employee reached after him as he vanished into the restroom alone.
"I loved you... the first time, and the last..."
Shhhhhhhhhh.
Hanbyul turned on the faucet at the sink and washed a face streaked with tears and snot.
"What if Hanbyul ends up hating me? I can't have that... I can't live without Hanbyul. Ah—maybe I should just make it so he can't live without me either. Then... would I have to cut his legs off?"
He had told Jiwoo he was going to wash his face and switched her to speaker, so her fretting poured out loud and clear. He hurriedly stopped what he was doing and called to his wife.
"Jiwoo... even now, I can't live without you..."
His voice was thick with tears.
"Kkkuuuhh...! H-Hanbyuuul...♡"
Jiwoo answered with a rough, ragged breath.
"Me too...♡ I can't live without Hanbyul either..."
As if the whole mess had somehow become a stepping stone for something deeper between them, they confessed their love and asked each other's forgiveness.
Maybe that was what love did. Maybe love made fools of people this easily...
Everything that had just happened between them was already long forgotten.
Or so he thought—
until later, when a text from Jiwoo arrived asking, Aren't you forgetting something?
But that was a problem for later. For now, he set it aside.
For the moment, they were simply a married couple savoring a dense, tender stretch of time in which love for each other kept blooming.
"Jiwoo... I'm soorry..."
"No. I'm the one who should be sorry. You're my husband, the man I love, and I didn't trust you."
"No... if I were you, I would have done the same."
"Yeah? Thanks for understanding."
"Of course I understand...♡"
The longer he talked with Jiwoo, the hotter Hanbyul's face grew.
Not from heat. From pure, simple love.
"Then, Hanbyul."
"Yeah... Jiwoo."
"You'll understand no matter what I do—and even if I do something without your consent, you'll understand that too?"
"Yeah. Of course?"
"Mmhm~♡ Got it, then."
It felt like she had been about to say more and then deliberately held it back.
"Mm..."
But she was his sweet Jiwoo again, and that was enough for him to forget it almost at once.
"Ah—look at me. We're going to be busy with the trip tomorrow."
"Ah, right. Jia..."
Only then did he remember the promise to meet his daughter in front of the clothing store inside the department store.
"Jiwoo, I'm sorry. I've got to go!"
"Yeah. Jia's going to be upset. Be good and cheer her up..."
"I will. I love you♡ Jiwoo♡"
"Hhuut...♡"
Click—.
He ended the long, long call with Jiwoo and bolted toward the clothing store where he was supposed to meet Jia.
Why isn't Dad here yet...?
It still wasn't the time they had agreed on—but considering how Dad always showed up a full fifteen minutes early, the situation felt distinctly strange.
"Hmm... did he go to the bathroom...?"
Wondering how he would react if she told him about the rather big thing that had happened before she got here, she sat in a chair and swung her legs.
"Haa... so boring..."
Honestly, there wasn't much Jia wanted to look at. More precisely—she hadn't been interested from the start.
I've already got everything ready. What else is there to prepare...
When Iseul first told her about the Summer Trip, it had tugged at her just enough that she had gone along.
And then, walking that way, she had spotted Dad heading somewhere in the opposite direction—and immediately found herself torn.
"Hey, Yang Jia. What are you doing. You coming or not?"
"Ah... n-no... just a second..."
She had meant to figure out where Dad was going, take a quick look at the Summer Trip stuff, and then catch up with him—except he wasn't heading into an open storefront. He was turning toward a corner.
If she stuck with Iseul, she could spend a perfectly nice time looking at all kinds of luxurious clothes and daydreaming about the next trip with Dad—but she wouldn't actually be with Dad.
On the other hand, following Dad would feel amazing, ridiculously good... but she had cheerfully agreed when Iseul asked her to come along. Bailing halfway through felt kind of wrong.
And so, inside Jia's head, a Jia in nothing but a white bra squared off against a Jia in nothing but black panties—
"Haa... I don't know. Iseul, what should I—"
When she came back to herself and looked around, she was alone.
"Haa... this bitch, for real."
Iseul had ditched her and vanished without a trace.
"Still... if I get to hang out with Dad...♡ isn't that actually better...?"
She dashed to the corner Dad had turned a moment ago, planning to jump him from behind—
"Daaad..."
What she found around the corner was a maze of stores and corners within corners. No sign of him anywhere.
"Haa... I should've just followed Dad from the start..."
As for Jiwoo—Iseul's mother—she was still wandering the department store at that point, saying she was going to pull some cash from an ATM.
Well... for all those reasons, Jia was thoroughly, utterly bored.
"Maybe I shouldn't have bought the swimsuit already..."
The second the trip had been mentioned, she had ordered the swimsuit she had already picked out online. She didn't particularly feel like buying anything new.
"Huh? Dad!"
Still before the appointed time, she felt the hurried footsteps of someone running toward her from far off, breathing hard.
It was definitely Dad. One hundred percent Dad. She stood up and waved her arms wildly toward the direction he was about to appear from—
"Huh? Wh...at...?"
Something was off about Dad's condition.
No... Dad himself looked the same. Perfectly fine.
It was more like... he was trailing sex appeal everywhere he went?
"Jia, sorry. I'm really late, aren't I?"
Kyuuuung.
A thick, concentrated smell of semen slammed into her—the kind that made a woman's womb clench.
"D-Dad...?"