Karma (1)
A night sky thick with darkness.
Inside a hushed airplane cabin.
A woman sat lost in thought, tracing constellations with her fingertip.
Unlike the times she had spent naked with Hanbyul, she was dressed in a sharp suit, and the effect was almost untouchable — an air of cool, unapproachable elegance. Yang Jiwoo, whose refined beauty alone could hold a gaze captive, was staring down at a chat log she had shared with Hanbyul.
A faint crack appeared in her otherwise still face.
"I seriously don't get it. What is he thanking me for? Is he messing with me?"
Every time she looked at this exchange, she couldn't tell who she was even talking to. It wasn't some trendy MZ-generation chat style either.
Am I the weird one...?
"The Hanbyul I know wouldn't talk like this..."
Yang Jiwoo swept her hair back and looked out the window again. Her dark black hair, grown longer than when she had left on this business trip, spilled in a sleek cascade.
"His wife is working herself to the bone, and he's off on a vacation."
The moment she got home, she wanted nothing more than to pull Hanbyul into her arms and let the exhaustion melt away. But the fact that he was out playing with some other woman made irritation flare hot in her chest.
"Okay, now I'm actually pissed."
She couldn't slam anything on a plane, so she settled for twisting a lock of her own hair between her fingers, swallowing the anger down.
The thought of seeing the husband she had been apart from for so long made her heart race — and at the same time left her irritated and worried.
"Just you wait. I'm collecting every last one."
Lied about working out / part-time job — 2 times.
Missed calls × 8 — 8 times. + 3 more — 11 times.
Made Jia cry — 5 times.
Late for video call — 1 time.
Didn't call or text even though he was sick — 10 times.
She pulled out the notepad where the grand total — 29 — was written. Even without an explanation, it was easy enough to guess what the number meant.
Twenty-nine times... that's way too few. I'd need a hundred before I'd be happy.
She twirled her pen and drew circle after circle around her personal wish of one hundred.
"Well... I can always invent new charges whenever the count starts looking low."
The number twenty-nine was clearly nothing more than window dressing.
Still tallying how many rounds she planned to wring out of Hanbyul, Jiwoo checked the time. There was still a while left, so she pulled out the newspaper she had only tucked into the seat pocket.
The cabin was quieter than a study hall, and the newspaper's rustling felt almost like noise pollution. She felt a flicker of self-consciousness — but only for a moment, because a massive headline snagged her eyes and held them.
Splashed across the page-three lead:
A celebrity scandal. Apparently broken by S-Patch.
"Ah...?"
The moment she saw the headline, one person flashed unbidden through her mind.
Not Hanbyul — the woman who shared her name. The one whose face she still hadn't seen, but who, by every account of that voluptuous body, had a bigger chest than she did.
"Fuck."
She ground her teeth as anxiety erupted like a volcano.
Don't tell me he mixed us up and sent that message to her instead of me...?
Are they fucking right now?
If he's actually fallen for her, then I...
Imagination piled on imagination. She shook her head hard, trying to deny it all.
"No no no no. Absolutely not. It can't be... right? It really can't be? Fuck, it has to not be."
The cool, composed career woman from moments ago was gone — replaced by someone visibly coming apart. Arms locked tight across her chest, she chewed her nails and flicked her gaze around the cabin. Even a stranger could have seen how rattled she was.
"It's not, right? It isn't. Please let it not be. Fuck, it's not!!!"
A woman's voice rang through the airplane. A flight attendant and nearby passengers started forward to complain — then took one look at her, thought better of it, and retreated.
"..."
Jiwoo dragged her suitcase into the house.
Not a single light was on. The only things waiting for her in that dark corner of a home were silence and a lonely chill.
"Hanbyul..."
Tonight, more than usual, she ached for her husband's face.
She had always hated coming home from work to find him clinging to their daughter — but she had loved the way he greeted her in that pink apron, smiling. She had loved that he was tall for a man yet still folded into her arms at almost the same height, all soft and endearing. She had loved the faintly indecent scent of his skin.
She had loved all of it, and yet—
"There's no one here."
No one to welcome her.
No one to look at her like she was truly precious...
It was frightening. And awkward.
She took a step, and only then did the motion sensors catch her — lights flaring on.
Click.
Light poured over the place where she stood, endless and isolating, as if she had washed up on a deserted island. Unable to bear the ugly picture of herself any longer, she started walking.
Click. Click. Click. Click....
Living room, kitchen, bathroom, Jia's room, the master bedroom — one after another.
"..."
Even so, the loneliness refused to leave.
Her husband wasn't dead. He hadn't been stolen by another woman. He was very much alive, and she knew he would be with her again — and still, something in her shook as if she might never see him for the rest of her life.
Without even changing out of her clothes, she collapsed face-down onto the bed and let out a long breath.
"Haa..."
And with it came her husband's scent.
"Ssshhp~ haa.. ssshhp~ haa.. ssshhp~ haa..♡"
Nothing like the sweat-stink of men who reeked of boiled stock. This was something else entirely — an untouchable, intoxicating, faintly lewd fragrance that filled the air.
A deep calm and a floating lightness spread through her whole body.
"Hanbyul, Hanbyul, Hanbyul, Hanbyul♡"
She stretched her arms and legs across the covers as if she had reached the ocean, trying to gather as much of him as she could into her embrace. With every wrinkle she bunched into the sheets, her hunger for Hanbyul swelled larger.
It wasn't warm body heat — but the scent of his skin was enough to make her forget how alone she was.
She told herself this should be enough. Her heart kept craving something bigger anyway.
"Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡ Hanbyul♡"
Her underwear grew damp, and the corner of the blanket pressed to her mouth soaked through with spit.
"My Hanbyul♡♡♡"
She shoved her pants and panties down in one motion and started grinding against the bedding.
"Right theree.. Hanbyul.. right there..♡"
Thinking of her husband, she rubbed roughly at her clit as it swelled stiff and tight. The faster her hand moved, the more slick poured out of her.
"Not enoughh.. haa.. haa.. it's not enoughh.."
Heat and pleasure boiled up from deep below, and it felt good — but it was like pouring water into a bottomless jar. Nowhere near enough.
She had always preferred the real thing with him, so she cast around for something useful. Because she usually just had sex whenever she got turned on or whenever Hanbyul was around, there wasn't so much as a single toy in the house.
"Haaaahh... Hanbyul, Hanbyul♡"
She didn't say anything else — only his name, over and over — as she pushed fingers that fell hopelessly short of his cock into her hole.
"Not enough. I said it's not enough..."
It wasn't enough to cool the body roaring under her skin. The sensation only teased, so she stopped, juices dripping — plip, plip — and scanned the master bedroom.
In the window glass, the reflection of Jiwoo's body was obscenely lewd. Her tie and dress shirt hung open, a flash of vivid red bra showing through the gap. Her hair was a mess, her eyes glazed and loose with lust, her mouth parted around feverish breaths, her face faintly dazed. She rolled those beautifully cut child-bearing hips and let slick drip from her pretty flower — a sight that made it hard to believe she was a married woman at all.
"Jeon Hanbyul! Who told you to have a body that fucking sexy!"
With trembling hands she ransacked the drawer and pulled out a pair of Hanbyul's underwear — whether to pull them on or stuff them in her mouth, even she wasn't sure.
She was lost in the thick scent of him when—
"...!!!"
Something under the bed, half-hidden behind a T-shirt as if someone had tried to stash it. It looked suspicious enough that she dropped the underwear and crawled over on unsteady hands and knees.
"Haa.. haa.."
Dragging her already overstimulated body along, she hauled the paper bag out and opened it — and without even checking what was inside, buried her nose straight into it.
Of course she did. It had been sealed for nearly three days. The second she opened it, that concentrated smell hit her in a single dense rush—!
"Ssssssshhhhp~~~~♡ Khaaaaaaah♡♡♡"
The smell of semen tore through her lungs and sank deep. Nose still pressed in, she inhaled in a frenzy. What she was smelling was—
the swimsuit — something close to a pair of bloomers — that Hanbyul had soaked through at the department store and brought home just like that.
The cum-drenched swimsuit their daughter Jia had already found once... and that his wife Jiwoo had now found as well.
"Jeon Hanbyul, you perverted little shit. Can't even hide something like this properly.. haah.. still haven't learned your lesson.. kuhh.. Jeon Hanbyul, just you waitt..♡ Ssshhp~ kkhoooookh..♡"
She licked and sucked at the semen dried hard into the fabric, greedily taking in her husband's body-scent and that thick baby batter.
"Chuuuup... ha.. chuuuuup~♡ ha.. soon.. I get to see you again soon.. Hanbyul. Hanbyul. Wait for me..."
Yang Jiwoo had come home a day earlier than planned, and she was already waiting. The Hanbyul she was aching for, counting the hours until she could have him—
"S-stoopp..♡ I-I was wrongg..♡"
"Wrong about whaat♡ I told you not to do this, didn't I?"
"Nn.. nnghiiiih!!!"
—was, on the last night of the summer trip, being eaten alive by the other Jiwoo.