Too Late for Pure Love
Time rewound several months.
"If an awakener unilaterally harms a civilian, it constitutes a serious crime. Are you aware of that?"
"Yes....."
It had happened in the middle of the night, right after she left the club.
She had run into Sunwoo, denied everything in a desperate attempt to slip away, and in the process accidentally broken a civilian's shoulder. She hadn't used much force, but the standards for civilians and awakeners were different. On top of that, she had left the collapsed man lying there and fled, which only aggravated the offense.
"Still, you're an A-Class awakener, and if this blows up it'll be a headache for everyone. How about we settle it quietly with an agreement?"
".........."
An agreement. And the settlement money that came with it.
The amount would have made her past self weep with gratitude and ask if forgiveness could really be bought so cheaply. But for the current Nari—penniless, already buried in loans—it was an impossible sum.
To borrow any more now she would have to go beyond even the third-tier lenders into the fourth. Bankruptcy might have been the cleaner option. In that desperate moment, something from the past flashed through her mind.
"I... I had no choice."
".....?"
That night at the club. A drunk man had screamed at a woman at the top of his lungs.
"That bitch framed me as a sex offender!!"
"That man suddenly tried to force himself on me... I had no choice but to defend myself...."
"W-What did you just say?!"
"...Could you please explain the sequence of events in detail?"
The case was resolved in an instant.
The location had been a club. She had been continuously plied with alcohol. CCTV showed the drunken, staggering Nari being groped again and again.
"Come on... that doesn't make any sense. Someone who claims she was forced is clinging to him like that?"
"I was... forced...."
"No, this is... haaah....!!"
In the blink of an eye the situation reversed. Victim and perpetrator switched places. She simply let it flow the way she had learned at the club—exactly as she had been taught.
"....Ah."
By the time she came back to herself, money was already in her hands.
Settlement money for not pressing charges of sexual assault. Roughly five million won all told.
"What... have I done...."
Despair lasted only a moment. Time kept moving, and hunger returned. She drifted into a nearby convenience store and bought a cup of instant noodles.
"........."
She tasted nothing. Everything felt hollow, as if the person called "me" was thinning out, growing dull.
Only when she returned to the motel and stood under the shower did Nari finally look at herself.
"Ah."
Ugly tattoos covered her entire body. Spade motifs. Black ink. The soft pink purity of her skin had long since been stained brown and dulled. The once-scarlet place no one's hand had ever been allowed to touch—the secret, the virginity—now looked like overcooked meat, wrinkled and ruined.
Lewd. Vulgar. No matter how you looked at it....
...Outcall massage.
Sunwoo had been right. From every angle she was a woman who sold her body. The reflection in the mirror was a whore, and she could not deny it even to herself.
Her trembling hands—she could not tell whether it was withdrawal from lack of drugs or simple self-loathing.
"Aaah....."
She was disgusting. The very existence called Nari was disgusting.
She raised her nails and scraped at the tattooed skin. Of course the ink did not come off. Still she scraped and scraped, nails digging deeper.
"Aagh......!"
A sharp sting. A small scrap of torn skin under her fingernail. At the same time the tattoo lightened, just a little.
".....Aaaah!"
Pain. Agony. Beads of blood welled up. But her eyes fixed on the fact that the tattoo had faded.
"Ah... aaaaaaah!!!"
She tore the skin with her nails. Blood streamed down. It dripped, then mixed with pus. The black tattoo turned red. White skin and black ink, faded past and worn present—everything was painted over, endlessly red.
"Auuugh..!"
When she opened her eyes again, the tattoo on her lower abdomen had been peeled away with the skin itself. The sharp pain was bearable. Compared to the wounds she had taken on the front lines of dungeons, this was nothing.
"Hhh..... hhh.... hhhh...."
She circulated mana through her body. The regenerative power of a warrior sealed the raw wound. The red, exposed flesh returned to white skin.
".....Ah."
White skin. Not a single black tattoo. As if she had returned to the past—pure, unblemished white.
"............"
She let the shower run over herself. The tattoo on her stomach was gone. That patch of skin looked a little paler than the rest, but it was still better than being stained black.
"....Mm."
The thought finished forming, and as if possessed Nari stood up. She went straight to the convenience store, bought a box cutter, returned to the bathroom, and extended the blade.
Schlick.... schlick-schlick....!
"Ah.... aha... ahaha...!"
Bit by bit she grew clean. Wrapped in red, she was reborn white.
...
..
.
From that day on, Nari's life changed.
She no longer went to the club. She quit the drugs and the alcohol.
"An A-Class awakener doing manual labor....?"
"It's fine. Just let me work."
She worked for the first time in a long while. Simple labor. Moving her body without thinking. It was not particularly hard, yet the money she earned by using her body again felt precious.
"As a porter....?"
"I'll only take a porter's wage for porter work."
After the first success, confidence gradually returned. She took any job she could find—construction, whatever. Porter or tanker, she no longer cared about status.
The money she accumulated rose with her passion; the money that vanished rose with her karma. Every drop of sweat she earned went straight to debt and loan repayment, but she did not mind much.
"Are you really okay taking only this much?"
"Thank you! Thank you!"
Because something more important was building up inside her. Something she had once possessed so naturally, had completely lost, and was now slowly recovering, one piece at a time. She could feel it with her whole body.
"Ugh.... uugh.... ugggh.....!"
Of course there were times it was hard to endure. Withdrawal from the drugs. Memories of the days she had moved on pure dopamine overload. The filthy, filthy, filthy nightmares etched into her skin and soul would rise, and then—
Skreeeek....
"Euh—haaah.....!"
She drained the filth that had built up in her body. Mixed with the blood, she felt herself grow lighter. Scars were no concern. An awakener's regeneration erased knife wounds without a trace. The only real problem was that repeated injuries left faint marks—but by the time her whole body was covered in white scars, that hardly mattered.
What mattered now was only one thing.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"...Sunwoo...?"
She met Sunwoo. Pure coincidence.
The place where he worked. A notice that Nature was hiring bodyguards. She applied and, against the odds, was accepted. She had only hoped to watch from a distance; she never imagined she would be close enough to see him up close...
Oh... what do I do...!
She could barely breathe. Her heart hammered too fast. Her head filled with opaque steam; everything spun.
"Ah... th-that...."
What should she say first? Long time no see? Nice to meet you?
As if Sunwoo would be glad to see her. If he had been glad, he would not be wearing that expression.
Then introduce herself? Tell him she was working as a bodyguard? He would never believe it—not after what she had shown him the last time they parted.
Or maybe show him the tattoos were gone. That she was different now. Nothing could prove it more clearly than the missing ink.
But suddenly lifting her shirt in the middle of a room would just make her look like a pervert or a slut...
"Uh. Uh. Uhgit."
She wanted to speak. She simply could not find the words. Two hearts collided at once, and Nari trembled like a broken machine.
"Hmm.... well. That can happen."
"Ah....?"
Contrary to all her agonizing, Sunwoo simply left without another word.
"..........."
He did not leave a single remark behind. Of course he didn't. They no longer had a relationship worth conversation, and the weight of her past sins still rested heavily on her.
So it was only natural. Rationally speaking, it was the most natural thing in the world, and yet...
".....Ah."
After the fan meeting ended, Nature and Sunwoo walked away together, chatting happily. The space that had once been hers no longer held a place for her.
"Aaaah.....!"
Even if she regretted her sins, even if she had become a new person, she could never return to the relationship they once had. Never to those same days.
Time that had already flowed past. A relationship already broken. No amount of solitary effort could repair it.
"Hic.... euh.... hhhnnn....!"
She drank. She drank and she cried.
"Augh.... hwaa, hhhhhnnn!"
Perhaps she had hoped. Wished. Dreamed, even knowing how shameless it was. Perhaps she had clung to that hope because nothing else remained to lean on.
"......Hh."
No. Stop. Stop using vague words like "perhaps."
"Hhhhhh....."
She had expected. She had wished. She had hoped and prayed. Knowing how shameless it was, she had still spun sweet delusions. And now, in this very moment—
".......I hate it."
The dream shattered. The empty hope vanished. Even the support she had built from fog was gone.
For three full days she drowned in tears and whispered:
"If only I could turn back time...."
I would never do it again. I would never, ever do something like that.
A futile wish. A futile dream. A dream that could never happen and could never come true—she prayed for it anyway.
And so,
"Sunwoo's memories...?"
On that distant yet near day that would one day arrive, the irreversible mistake she was about to commit was perhaps already decided.