Cleanup (2)
Ever since awakening, she had lost all proper control over her emotions.
She could feel her body moving exactly as her heart dictated, without filter or restraint.
She hated Seon-ah so much.
Even so, she had wanted to let him rest properly today.
But while she was bathing him, she saw Min-ji's traces left all over his body, and from that moment on she began to act as if the part of her that regulated feeling had simply broken.
She knew that if she claimed him herself she would shatter him completely, so she forced him to show her affection instead.
Yet Seon-ah barely managed to leave a few marks of his own on her body before whining that he was too tired.
When she loved him this much.
The thought crossed her mind that maybe, after being with Min-ji once, he had simply stopped wanting her.
The moment that idea took hold, the lover she had found so precious vanished without a trace, and all that remained in her eyes was a man who had confessed to another woman.
What was she supposed to do with a Seon-ah who only thought with what hung between his legs?
The answer was simple: torment that thing attached to his lower body without mercy, wring it until no other thought could form at all.
She kept squeezing and milking him over and over until Seon-ah sobbed and cried that he didn't want it.
Was this how things between them ended?
Would he ultimately run off to Min-ji?
In that moment, the only emotion left in her was rage.
For Seon-ah's sake, she had worked since childhood to become the kind of woman he preferred.
He liked filthy things, so she had trained herself relentlessly to give him filth until he was sick of it.
When she heard he liked athletic women with tight, well-built bodies, she had desperately learned every martial art the trainers at the Hwaryong Guild would teach her.
One day he had said he liked a woman who lost during the day and won at night — so while the sun was up she played the gentle, sweet girlfriend to perfection.
She had done everything he wanted, and now, after all of that… in the end… he only ever complained that he hated what she gave him.
Did he really prefer that bitch to her now?
Faced with Seon-ah's unbearably selfish face — ready to throw her away despite every effort she had poured into him — fury surged up her throat, and she seized him by the neck.
If it was going to end like this, she would not give him to anyone.
The memories of Seon-ah belonged to her alone.
That was the thought running through her head when it happened.
With a sickening crack, Seon-ah's neck broke.
Only after he had gone without air for a long time did the realization hit her.
This man, his throat ruined and his airway sealed, was about to stop breathing.
The anger ebbed, and understanding rushed in to take its place.
She called his name in desperate, frantic cries, but it was already too late.
In a single flash of rage she had surrendered her body to the feeling, and she had killed Seon-ah.
Regret and guilt crashed over her in a crushing wave.
There was no taking it back.
And then, while that thought still held her —
A warm heat returned to Seon-ah's body, and the neck that should have still borne the clear imprint of her hands became whole again.
She had clamped down on his carotid until the blood stopped moving through him and his body had begun to go cold; now warmth flooded back into him.
.
.
.
The ruined throat and the blue-and-purple bruises mottled across his entire body vanished as one, and even his condition seemed to recover.
Eyes that exhaustion had forced shut opened clear and ordinary again, as if he had simply woken from a nap, refreshed.
Yurin's voice reached him through choking sobs, apologizing over and over.
He told her he was all right now, trying to calm her, but Yurin only kept saying she was sorry, her face twisted with tears.
She must have cried for a long time.
When she finally seemed to settle a little, he explained what had happened to his body.
"I… I think I might have awakened… My body doesn't hurt, weirdly enough… But I feel a little drained…"
"It's probably the aftereffect of using an ability. Earlier, after I used a power that let me move insanely fast, I felt my strength drop out of me too. That same heavy, limp feeling."
Whether she believed him or not, Yurin said she understood, and spoke as if she would answer anything he asked.
"Just now… I'm really sorry. I was too angry. Ever since I awakened, I can't keep my heart under control."
He had no choice but to believe her.
It was true that he had confessed to Min-ji.
And it was possible that, somewhere in Yurin's heart, she had hated him enough to want him dead.
But the Yurin who obsessed over him would not kill him. She would tie him down and hold him until his heart turned back to her.
Everything she had done until now had been proof of how badly she wanted him.
The way she took him, the way she handled anything connected to him — she had always been somewhat extreme.
But what she had done this time was something he had never seen from her before.
She had clearly crossed a line.
He had heard it said before.
Awakening was most likely to occur in moments of crisis severe enough to leave trauma, under stress that pushed past every limit, or in instants of extreme concentration —
which also meant there was a real possibility of lasting damage to the mind.
From Yurin's perspective, not long after he confessed to Min-ji he had been kidnapped and violated by Min-ji all over again.
He had even been in a situation where the kidnappers might have killed him.
On top of that, Yurin herself had been forced to watch him being used and had faced the possibility of her own death — more than enough to leave a psychological scar.
If that was true, then he, who had awakened in the moment just before dying, was just as likely to be carrying mental wounds of his own.
While he sat lost in thought, Yurin watched his face.
She looked a little dazed herself; she must have been turning any number of things over in her mind as well.
"Tomorrow… let's go register as Awakened… We can tell our parents a little later…"
If his parents found out he had been kidnapped and raped by another woman, they would lose their minds.
Judging by the fact that an investigator from the Hwaryong Guild had taken their recorded statements after yesterday's incident was more or less wrapped up, the Executive Director probably already knew.
He figured Yurin must have asked her mother for help in order to save him.
His own parents would learn the truth eventually, but he decided it would not be too late to tell them after he and Yurin had steadied their own emotions first — so he chose to put that conversation off a little longer.
He made Yurin promise the same, saying they would speak to them later.
Most people who announced they had awakened had done so in dangerous circumstances, and his parents might worry.
Yurin said she had already told her mother about her own awakening.
From the way she described telling her everything — how she had awakened, what ability she had gained — he knew the day would come when his mother asked him exactly what moment had triggered his.
I was being taken by Yurin when she suddenly grabbed my neck and twisted it and I almost died, so I awakened.
If he said that, he would make an enemy of Executive Director Park Yura's entire household that very day.
Even if his mother had climbed so high in the Executive Director's faction that people now called her Park Yura's right hand, she was still the kind of person who would cut ties with anyone who laid a hand on her family.
For now, he decided to sleep on it and think later.
The fatigue in his body had almost vanished, but it had been a day that drained him down to the spirit, and he did not want to think anymore.
Lying in bed, he closed his eyes and fell asleep at once.
While Seon-ah slept, Yurin went to Hanil University and submitted withdrawal forms for both of them.
No matter how good the department was, no matter how much money it promised, Awakened with acceleration-type abilities like hers and Awakened with healing abilities like his could expect quite high rankings.
Seon-ah, with that power of his, could even join a medical team treating Hunters and work from the rear, or take a post at a major hospital.
She had no intention of shoving Seon-ah into a Gate, either.
Even if he wanted it, she was firmly set against it.
Gates were that dangerous.
And then there was Min-ji.
The woman who kept stoking her jealousy and her rage.
She planned to send Choi Min-ji the video of her little brother doped out of his mind and gang-raped by other women.
The footage she had commissioned had arrived on the very day Seon-ah was kidnapped.
She would send it anonymously, along with a clear message: stay away from them from now on.
If Min-ji did not want her younger brother becoming an SNS celebrity, she would do exactly as she was told.
And Yurin could not forgive Min-ji for defiling Seon-ah's body.
She had only attended for a few months, but it was starting to feel real that this place was finished for her.
Once she left, she doubted she would ever set foot on the Hanil University campus again.
It had been a fun stretch of university life, she supposed.
All that remained was to go with Seon-ah the next day and register as Awakened.