Yukiko-5: "My Daughter Has Caused You Trouble"
Hearing the voice spill from the phone, Yukiko's mind cooled like ice. It was an unforeseen variable. With every nerve focused on her master, she hadn't even considered her foster mother might intervene. The woman was cursing Yukiko viciously, but it was nothing new to her. She didn't see anything particularly wrong with it.
"We'll send another girl from our family as quickly as possible."
Yukiko's face twisted in dismay. The "other girl" from the family would almost certainly be her half-sister Haruko. Back in the clan, Yukiko had never once beaten her. Haruko was the real premium product of the Shinohara family—never even considered for sale as a slave. The only reason she'd suddenly be sold off as one was Yukiko herself.
Yukiko's reports back home about her "slave treatment" had painted too rosy a picture. It was better than being a concubine or lover, and now they were coveting it. This wasn't just a wrinkle in her plans—it threatened to steal her position outright.
"No, that's not what I want right now."
Yukiko's restless heart settled at Seongha's words. If her foster parents had begged without cursing her, and asked him to take her older sister too, that would have been the worst scenario. A kind-hearted master like him would have agreed, and Haruko—with her sweet, seductive ways—would have wrapped him around her finger.
Ironically, for some reason, he believed Yukiko would be happier away from his side. He wanted to let her go, but without any ill will toward her. From the moment he'd started demeaning her over the phone, his heart had inevitably drifted. It was a miscalculation on her foster mother's part to judge this delicate—no, irrational—man through a few phone calls.
Yukiko allowed herself a triumphant smile.
Her foster mother began hurling harsher insults over the line. It started as mildly upsetting, but soon escalated to curses so vicious Yukiko half-felt her life was in danger.
What terrified Yukiko wasn't the petty abuse. Such punishments required her master's permission in the first place, and as long as the slave contract held, her foster mother—a total stranger in that sense—couldn't lay a hand on her. Cutting off limbs or breeding her with a boar required his explicit approval. And Yukiko knew he wouldn't allow it. She could tell from that hideously contorted expression on his face.
She'd always thought "killing intent" was just hyperbole. But glancing at his profile, she realized how narrow her world had been. From the lower half of his face alone, with his cheekbones raised in a crescent, he might have looked like he was smiling. But his eyes glared murderously at some distant point, and the harsh breaths escaping his lips matched his fury.
Sometimes, Yukiko forgot the obvious. Every man receiving a military pension had survived the Great War. They'd killed dozens, hundreds of people. That rage was the anger of a killer.
A man who'd undergone the physical enhancement procedure could crush someone to death with bare hands—literally. Even trained women with weapons couldn't beat an unarmed enhanced male. The man right in front of her could kill her in seconds.
Ironically, Yukiko felt her life threatened not by her foster mother's insults, but by her master's rage on her behalf. Her mind knew he posed no danger to her, but instinct didn't care. Even a tamed tiger roaring at another beast would make a frail human shrink in fear.
"Hey."
The short, guttural word ended it. Yukiko trembled in terror—and pleasure. This unreasonably powerful man cherished her. In his arms, she was safe. And though he'd never gotten angry before, making it easy to overlook, his fury was sexy in her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's not about sorry... Is Yukiko's family always like this? Her mom is kinda..."
He asked her directly, his menacing face unconcerned with how he appeared. Yukiko gave a vague rundown of her family situation, but her attention had already shifted far from the clan.
"But there's no lie in what she said."
If her foster mother's attitude could stir his emotions, she could use it. It was a dangerous gamble, but Yukiko was certain he wouldn't harm her.
"It's true that I'm immature and failed to please you, Master. A woman like me deserves punishment. Even now, you could punish me and bring my sister..."
Yet when he gripped her shoulder tightly, fear surged—only to vanish at the sound of his voice.
"If you say one more word, I'll really get mad..."
Anger was instinctual, reflexive. But it had to be checked. He needed to recognize why he was angry.
"Whether you need me or not, and punishing the unneeded—those are rights you rightfully hold, Master."
Half of Yukiko's words were sincere, half calculated to stoke his rage. If she'd intended to stay in a mere master-slave dynamic, she'd have stayed silent without voicing her thoughts. So she hoped he'd refute her. Deny her words.
"Yukiko is the best. No matter what anyone says, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever met. Kind, diligent. You don't need to blame yourself for being immature, or deserve any punishment."
Yukiko savored every word, reveling in how perfectly her plan was falling into place. Awkward as it was, it was a love confession. Not some vague notion in his head—he'd admitted aloud, right in front of her, that he liked her.
Time for the next step.
"Then why try to discard me?"
"I'm not discarding you!"
From the conversation with her foster mother onward, Seongha's mental fortitude had been steadily eroding. Normally, he'd choose words carefully out of propriety or not wanting to burden her unnecessarily—but now, cornered, he couldn't.
"Before the war, someone like me could've never had a woman like you as a slave, let alone a girlfriend, right?"
Seeing him scream in anguish, Yukiko knew she'd hit bottom. The self-loathing buried deep in his emotions had surfaced.
The misunderstanding that she had a lover was entirely her fault. She'd kept the photo for sentimental reasons, but from the moment she became a slave, she should have discarded it. Men obsessed with female purity and chastity were relentlessly paranoid—having a photo with another man was dangerous in itself.
But she couldn't admit the mistake or apologize now.
"Master. May I presume upon your mercy and do something terribly presumptuous? Trick you with cunning schemes, hurt your feelings with harsh words."
If he'd threatened her, demanding if she'd been with another man or if her virginity claim was a lie, she'd have cleared the misunderstanding to survive. But instead, he'd tried to send her off to happiness with her lover. Treating a slave this way went beyond kindness into madness.
Leaning on that immense mercy, Yukiko crossed the line once more. She pointed out the flaws in his logic. The man in the photo might have been a lover, but the odds of him still being alive were near zero.
"From the moment you first saw me, Master, it feels like you've already decided the 'right' answer and acted on it."
Her master was deluded. No—he'd willfully averted his eyes from the truth. She hammered it home, point by point.
"If I could just be your slave, Master, money wouldn't matter."
She wasn't faking affection just to survive.
"Even before the war, I'd have sold smiles in the arms of men I didn't want."
The war hadn't changed her circumstances at all. No matter what, he could never be her victimizer.
Once he seemed sufficiently unsteady, Yukiko landed the finishing blow.
"I love you."
She swiftly pulled out a silver ring and slipped it onto his ring finger. Seongha, naturally, couldn't accept her love at face value, but Yukiko confessed anyway, detailing just how much she adored him.
"You're kind, always on my side even if you're a bit off-kilter."
"You affirm me, love every part of my life."
"And you're handsome. No arguments there—beauty and ugliness are subjective tastes."
She meticulously, persistently dismantled every reason he might reject her heart. As she kissed his neck lingeringly, Yukiko wore a deep, seductive smile she'd never shown before—not even in defeat.
Her hands grew bolder on his body. The plan had succeeded. Time to reap the rewards.