Monster (6)
She gently parted her legs and stretched her arms forward. When she closed her eyes, a breath rougher than any she had felt before swept across her back. Poison Human felt excitement and unease at once from that breathing, and a strange flutter crept into her heart.
"Huu..."
The knowledge that the man who had always cherished and held her had, in this moment, become like a beast craving her—that if she slipped even slightly, he might pounce and ravage her completely—plunged her into a strange, alien feeling.
The simple word *test* threw everything into chaos, as if a leash had been yanked and someone shouted 'Bite!' at a guard dog straining at the leash.
"Hng-eut...!"
It was a truly peculiar thing. Things she would have hated if anyone else did them were now happening without hesitation, and her body—ticklish yet far from displeased—felt its way into confusion. Even in a situation where a single slip of her mind might spew poison in all directions, Poison Human could not properly define the feeling that seized her heart.
"Ha-eut! Ah...!"
Docheol kneaded her calf. His touch was gentle. Yet it was a way no one had ever touched her before, and the sensation of his hand sweeping upward sent a tingle all the way to the base of her spine.
"You must endure."
Docheol's voice rang in her ear. He was right. She had to endure. The sensation that rose from her toes and tickled her lower belly, that unfamiliar wave sending chills down her spine and making her rise onto her heels—she had to suppress it all and focus her mind.
"If your mind wavers, the poison will leak out. Do you understand? Focus harder."
She had to focus even harder. From now on, there would be many more startling events, many more baffling things to go through. If every time she lost control on a whim and scattered poison everywhere, how could she ever gain her freedom?
Freedom was a right enjoyed only by those who knew how to properly wield their power.
Poison Human bit her lip tightly. When she glanced sideways at Docheol, he was surveying her with a very sharp, alluring gaze and exhaling softly against the nape of her neck. Every time she felt that gaze, her body heated.
*****
"...How is the food?"
The next morning. For some reason, Poison Human could not tear her gaze away from Docheol, her face flushed. Her eyes held wonder and a touch of excitement. Even under such an intent stare, Docheol casually spoke as if nothing were different.
"Why are you acting like this?"
"...Mister. Last night..."
Poison Human could not finish her sentence. The contact she had tried for the first time last night had left an intense imprint on her mind and body. It was the first time anyone had touched her body that way, and the first time anyone had breathed such warm, sweet words so close. Actions she would surely have detested from someone else—but because the person who had done them was the one who had cherished her until now, her mind brimmed with confusion.
She needed to clearly define the emotion she was feeling.
But the words she blurted out to do so never formed a sentence; they dissolved into a mere string of incomplete words. Namely,
Mister. Last night. And the rest was ambiguous silence left to Docheol's imagination.
"...Was last night too much?"
Docheol asked with a smile. Even though she hadn't formed a proper question, he pierced straight to the part she found most bewildering.
"Ahit!"
As if jabbed suddenly in the side, she jerked her shoulders and jumped, then shook her head, her face flushing bright red.
"N-no... It, it wasn't too much... It was..."
"Then how was it?"
At Docheol's question, Poison Human barely collected her wits. Then, from among the words she knew, she picked the expression closest to the sensation she had felt the previous night and opened her mouth.
"I-it was strange."
"Strange in what specific way? Try imagining it again. The feeling we shared last night."
At the words *the feeling we shared last night*, her body trembled again. What had they done last night? Late into the night, Docheol had kneaded her calf, wrapped his hands tightly around hers, and whispered in her ear to focus. What exactly had she felt each time? Almost unconsciously, Poison Human lowered her hand. Her fingers touched the top of her foot, then swept upward as if tracing a picture, gliding over her ankle. Then she moved around to the back and began firmly kneading the soft part of her calf.
Then she straightened her back again. She clasped her own hands as if in prayer, kneading the palms and the backs at will. She repeated this like a child playing with mud, then drew her right hand close.
She wrapped it around her left wrist like a bracelet, moved up to the forearm, over the shoulder, and onto her chest. She pressed firmly over her still-small chest, then opened her mouth without meeting Docheol's eyes.
"...Here, it tickled. And..."
Her face was red. After hesitating and failing to finish, she turned around and spoke, pointing at her back.
"I kept feeling this weird, electric, tingling sensation right here."
"After you felt that sensation, what did you think you had to do? Did you think you had to push me away?"
"...It tickled so intensely, and it was a sensation I'd never felt before, so I wanted to push you away. But... because it was you, Mister, I held back."
Docheol smiled with satisfaction. The still-uneaten food on the table was steaming. Through the haze, his expression was blurry, but he was smiling. Docheol picked up his chopsticks and spoke.
"There's no need to hold back."
"What?"
"I don't mean push me away because you hate it. From today, try to accept that sensation as much as possible. But you mustn't get too lost in it. Do you understand?"
"A-accept it?"
Poison Human asked back with a puzzled expression. Docheol nodded as he wrapped some boiled meat in bok choy and shoved it into his mouth. The way he chewed noisily while raising his eyebrows was comical.
******
The night arrived without being urged, as if someone pushed it forward. No matter how long the road to Shaanxi was, did the sun really have to set so soon?
In a small lodging set within the mountains, Docheol and Poison Human took their places again. Poison Human stretched her arms into the air, knitting her brow to receive the feeling he had spoken of yesterday.
What was truly strange was the word *accept* itself. That phrase, which didn't land easily, was as strange as the bizarre feeling she had experienced the night before. No matter how she tried to unravel it with words, she couldn't grasp its meaning—until the moment Docheol lightly glided his fingers from her ankle to her calf.
Without realizing it, her body curled inward, but then she recalled his words, closed her eyes tightly, and willed her foot to relax again. That was when she could perceive the delicacy in the touch she had unconsciously rejected. His fingers moved along the grain of Poison Human's muscles, pressing firmly on the soft parts so she wouldn't be hurt, as though he were savoring a person with his hands.
"Haa..."
A completely different voice emerged than the night before. Last night's voice had been like a child jumping into cold water, but now she was like someone easing into a hot bath, her body adapting to the temperature.
Suddenly, Poison Human could feel that she was in Docheol's embrace—a fact she hadn't realized the night before, when she had unconsciously flinched from his touch. Even if she relaxed her back just a little and focused her senses, she could feel his solid chest and his straight, extended limbs. His arms were packed with muscle, firm as logs, and the part pressing against her chest radiated heat inexplicably.
"Haaa..."
A hot breath escaped Poison Human's mouth.
It was a truly strange thing. The word *accept* itself seemed to have become some kind of spell, as if hypnotizing her. Once she accepted what she had vaguely been refusing the night before, everything felt different.
The things Docheol held firmly, the warmth of him embracing her.
And his rough exhales and the question he asked from time to time.
"Are you alright?"
Poison Human had heard that question before. In a pitch-black room with no one around, she had been fixing her gaze on the wall. As she shuffled her feet with expectant eyes, the wall cracked and light streamed in.
Once, twice. The light grew with each crude, axe-like blow, and finally the wall collapsed. Docheol swept his hair back and showed Poison Human a radiant smile. Even then, he had asked her the same question in the same voice.
"Are you alright?"
Poison Human realized that the fluttering and tickling she felt now was not simply a reaction to her body being touched suddenly. This burning heat was never sudden. It was an intense desire that had governed her body and heart far longer than she had thought.
From the moment Docheol first met her eyes—no, from the moment she first heard his voice—it had been dry kindling waiting for its time inside her body. She had simply caught fire at last, like brittle twigs meeting a mountain wind and igniting.
A fire started on a dry mountain range cannot be contained.
Poison Human merely did not know that fact.