Against My Will, I Became a Voyeur
“I wonder what time she gets off work...”
I made my way past the darkening streets and back toward the arcade. When I eased the door open, the place was far emptier than it had been during the day.
She's not here? Did she clock out?
Though I honestly doubted that "clocking out" was even a concept they practiced here. If she'd been dragged in over a debt, she might well be locked away somewhere for all I knew.
“What a mess. Heh. Serves them right.”
What I found instead was a different sight entirely: the men had finally noticed the money missing from the safe.
Inside the cramped little exchange office — a man running his hands through his hair again and again, seething; a man planted with both hands on his hips, sighing gust after gust; another with his head hung low, hands clasped behind his back, taking the scolding. And the big-headed man himself, seated in the room's only chair, glowering. Every last one of them wore fury on their faces, wounded to the core.
I took a moment to savor the view, then slipped right back out.
“Hm. Missed her. Oh well.”
With no time-stop allowance to spare, there wasn't anything I could have done anyway.
See you next time, pretty girl.
I turned away with cool detachment and headed for home.
And in that very moment, I spotted a familiar silhouette in the distance.
She was standing at a bus stop.
Trying to catch a bus?
I wheeled around and made straight for her.
“Huh?”
And before long, I came face to face with a scene I had no desire to see.
“Were you waiting long?”
“No. I just got here too.”
A pretty boy with a face like a girl's. A young man who looked about her age stepped off the bus and took her hand.
A bright, clear smile bloomed across her face — one I'd never once seen at the arcade. The way her eyes lingered on him was so achingly tender that I nearly turned on my heel right then and there.
Letting your lover work in a place like that. What could possibly be so great about him.
The two of them looked like something out of a romance poster, and I had to shake the sentimental haze from my head in a hurry before slowly closing the distance behind them.
Just then, the woman pulled something from her bag.
“I got a ton of tips today. Look at this.”
“Really? The old guys gave you that?”
“What's with that face? What? You think I let them grab my butt to earn it?”
“N-no, that's not it. I just... feel terrible. Making you work at a place like that...”
“Enough. Let's not talk about that. It's not like I work there because of you.”
“Haah... This hurts.”
They looked half a second from a fight — then, as if none of it had happened, wrapped their arms around each other.
Too blinding. I can't watch this.
Still, one thing could be gleaned from their exchange: she was desperate for money.
“Let's go. Want to eat out for once?”
“No. Put the money in my account first. The sooner I do, the sooner I can quit that job.”
“Okay.”
“Excuse me.”
I called out to her just as she was leaving the stop. She turned around, got a good look at my face, and her brows snapped upward.
“Who are you?”
“I know something, you know?”
Ignoring the young man bristling at my side, I spoke directly to her. She gave a puzzled little nod.
“This money. It's from that person over there...”
Then she leaned in and whispered something to the man beside her. The wariness etched into his face only deepened.
“Why?”
“One question, a hundred thousand won. How about it?”
“Sorry — a question?”
“Yes.”
Brushing past even the man's piercing glare, I pressed on. The woman gazed up at him with soft, entreating eyes.
“Let's just hear him out. If it's some creepy question, don't answer.”
Apparently fluent in her language, the man answered on her behalf. I gave a nod and continued.
“Fair enough. How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
Oh. Same age as Sena. She looks much younger than that, though.
At the man's answer, I turned my head toward the woman.
“The woman has to answer, or I don't pay.”
“She's twenty, all right.”
I shrugged and looked back at her expectantly, question in my eyes; only then did she finally open her mouth. Nothing like the firecracker she'd been at the arcade — reduced to a docile little lamb in front of her lover.
It was kind of cute, honestly.
“Here you go.”
“You'll really give it to me...?”
“Take it.”
“Thank you.”
The moment the money changed hands, the two turned slowly away, faces full of doubt. I promptly fished more cash from my bag.
“I'm not finished with my questions.”
“Oh. Right. Go ahead.”
A noticeably more proactive posture now. The girl who'd been deferring every answer to her man had begun speaking for herself. Quite satisfied with the sight, I allowed myself a faint smile and moved to my next question.
“Why do you work at a place like that?”
“Ah, well...”
A troubled look crossed her face — clearly a story with some weight to it. But the moment I pulled out more bills and gave them a casual wave, she pushed back the man who tried to answer for her and spoke up slowly on her own.
“My dad died knee-deep in debt.”
“Couldn't you renounce the inheritance?”
“It was illegal money to begin with, so no such thing existed. They barged right into my dad's funeral and got a stamp pressed under my name before I knew what was happening.”
“So you work there to pay off that money?”
“Yes. There's just no other way.”
Nothing that strayed far from my expectations. The same story as Soyoung at the gukbap house. If they were in the business of swapping names around so debts could never be repaid, they'd no doubt pulled some vile tricks on Soyoung as well.
“That was just the beginning. Then they started talking about the principal — saying next they'd hand me over to an establishment.”
“I'm sorry — me?”
“Yes.”
She hadn't even imagined that much? The two of them stared at me with the round, startled eyes of rabbits caught in headlights. Then the realization seemed to sink in, and their eyes began to tremble.
“How much is the principal?”
“The principal... I don't know. It just keeps growing...”
She answered in an anxious voice as she accepted the money I offered. I shook my head.
“The part that grows is interest. I'm asking what your dad borrowed in the first place.”
“It was thirty million won originally... he'd been paying it off for a year when he passed...”
She trailed off, her voice unsteady.
“It's okay. I won't leave things like that. But — who are you, telling me all this and even handing me money...?”
At that, the man wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders and asked.
“Someone who's fallen for that girlfriend of yours.”
I answered the instant the question left his mouth. His face contorted on the spot.
“See? This guy's word isn't worth a thing either. Stop frightening our Bom and get going already.”
“I'm not frightening her. I've seen it with my own eyes. People being sold off like that. A lot of them, too.”
“I'm sorry — really?”
So her name is Bom, huh.
Pretty name, too.
A dark shadow settled over the woman's face. I'd taken her for a tough kid — but caught in fear like this, her softness finally showed through.
“Let's go. Now.”
“Then... what am I supposed to do?”
“Latch onto a rich man. Someone like me.”
“I'm sorry — a man... like you...?”
She echoed my words under her breath, studying my face. Can I trust this guy?, that look seemed to say. Right in front of those eyes, this time I held up a few fat bundles of fifty-thousand-won notes for her to see.
“This was your scheme from the start, wasn't it, mister? You just want something like prostitution. Am I wrong?”
“No. I just want to be a voyeur, that's all.”
“W-what did you say?”
Pretty face or not, the girl had quite the temper on her. She barked at the top of her lungs, and even with money in the picture her face stayed scrunched up as she demanded answers. For now, I fobbed it off as "being a voyeur" and studied her expression.
An angry face.
Damn. Not landing, is it.
So money doesn't work on everyone.
This is getting kind of embarrassing... should I just bail?
It was right at that moment — my confidence in free fall, my hand hovering over the abort button — that the girl called Bom, who had retreated behind her boyfriend, reached back and grabbed the hem of his clothes.
“Let's go, Bom.”
“How much are you offering?”
And then, flatly ignoring the man's words, she stepped around him and asked me point-blank.
Figures.
No way a girl this desperate wouldn't fall for money.
“Two hundred.”
“Two million won...?”
“Bom. What's gotten into you?”
Her eyes were smoldering now. The man grabbed her wrist in a panic, but—
“Quit it — quit saying it's none of your business, quit shooting down everything I decide on my own.”
She shook off his hand instead.
She's in.
When the man fell silent, her eyes swung back to me. The wariness was already gone from them.
“You're a voyeur — you want to watch a couple do it, right? But I don't want to wrong Hanseong. What if I show you by myself? In exchange, my boyfriend comes along. He has to.”
“Bom, are you actually going to do this?”
“He's a rich mister. I want out of this mess fast. Just stay beside me.”
“Bom. You're serious. Fine, then I'll do it with you. I can't stand by and watch you take it alone.”
I quietly observed their back-and-forth. Before long, the conversation had settled entirely into Bom's terms — the man, for all his resistance, inevitably bending to her will.
“Absolutely nothing else. And — money first.”
“I'll hand it over the second we arrive.”
And just like that, I'd talked the two of them into it.
Playing voyeur hadn't exactly been the plan from the start, but well — a private screening of live porn didn't look half bad, if I said so myself.
The moment we reached the motel, I set the stacks of cash down on the floor by the entrance and watched the two of them head for the bed. Before long, Bom threw the bed an awkward glance and made for the bathroom.
“I'll wash up first.”
I shook my head.
“Wash together. Where I can watch.”
“Mister, what even are you? How do you have this much money?”
“Do it right, and there's more where that came from.”
“Hanseong. Thank you. For helping me. You know how I feel, right?”
“I know. Let's do this.”
After a brief, tight clasp of hands, the two of them disappeared into the bathroom.
And soon enough, Hanseong was peeling Bom's clothes away. Her top and bra came off with a light tug, baring her plump young breasts. Fair skin and small, proudly jutting mounds — the fresh bloom of twenty laid out in full view.
Then her skirt and panties slid down her hips.
Her lower half came into view — long, beautifully proportioned legs all the more striking on her petite frame — and I pulled my own shirt off in kind.
“M-mister, why are you undressing...”
My underwear went flying next, and my cock — rock hard and aching since long before this — reared up at full mast.
“You should at least be jerking me off, kid.”