Adjustment After Returning (6)
Even though two days had passed since she’d met Shin Jaecheol, Ha Yujeong was still pacing outside Chae Eunha’s apartment with no word from her.
She wasn’t in the habit of contacting her privately. But this time was different.
Most of all, she already knew what had happened from Shin Jaecheol.
— Hunter Choi Eunho’s body was closer to an otherworldly divine being. It wore the shape of a human, but it could not be changed by human laws.
Otherworldly being. Divine being. No, just a god.
Even though the gods worshipped on Earth had never once appeared before humanity.
The otherworldly Sponsors, beings with no problem calling themselves gods, had begun making contact as Gates appeared and Awakeners emerged.
They asked for a price in exchange for power.
It was incremental. At first, a small price for a small power. The further one went, the greater the price and the greater the strength exchanged.
In that sense, the Sponsor Choi Eunho had contracted with was... unusual. Of all the Sponsors Ha Yujeong had ever seen.
Too powerful.
The power given to Choi Eunho was far too great to say it had simply been bestowed by a Sponsor upon a contractor.
She had never even heard of any price being paid. For power of that magnitude, no price could ever be enough.
And then, out of nowhere, it had taken a price—and that price was merely to turn her into a woman.
One could only call that a Sponsor with remarkably modest demands.
Though if its demand was small, then it meant it would never, ever let even that small thing go.
She didn’t know what significance it held, but honestly, it was almost perverse.
Then again, it was absurd for a human on Earth to try to judge the thoughts of an otherworldly being.
"Chae Eunha-ssi. Are you all right?"
Ding-dong.
Exhausted from waiting, she pressed the doorbell.
Truthfully, if this were merely a matter of not getting through by phone, she wouldn’t have come all the way here.
Last time she’d visited the apartment, it had been because the Association needed to summon her immediately. Normally, when nothing urgent was happening, they left her alone.
Because Choi Eunho himself had said to.
He had told them more than a hundred times not to worry about it and that he’d contact them on his own.
For three years, he’d spent his time alone like that, only to get in touch much later. It happened more often than not.
Usually, some troublesome incident or another followed afterward.
But this time, it was hard to leave her alone.
The woman Choi Eunho had become felt somehow unstable. Psychologically, that is.
She acted tough. She was imitating Choi Eunho. But in the end, it felt like she could do that only because she still had something to rely on.
And once that support broke, Ha Yujeong had a feeling she would collapse with it.
Right now, it felt as if that very support had fallen apart.
Choi Eunho might have seemed like a lunatic, but he wasn’t the sort of person who would destroy himself. Chae Eunha was.
Ha Yujeong had seen women around Choi Eunho give off that same sour, unstable feeling before. It had never ended well for any of them.
So she’d come here under the pretense of delivering the forged ID card made for “Chae Eunha.”
Click.
The apartment entrance wasn’t locked.
That felt wrong. Uneasy, Ha Yujeong still opened the door.
The moment she stepped inside, the stench of alcohol hit her hard enough to make her head swim.
"Ugh."
The living room air purifier was running.
And yet, even with it going, the alcohol floating through the room was so overwhelming it couldn’t win against it.
Ha Yujeong pinched her nose at once. Bottles were rolling across the floor.
Expensive whiskey, wine, all the costly liquors that had supposedly been aged for decades.
Ha Yujeong didn’t know much about alcohol, but she knew at least this much: Choi Eunho had never possessed the kind of specialist knowledge needed to drink all this and distinguish between them.
He had gathered expensive bottles, turned them into a liquor storage room, then left them there without even drinking them, staring at them like a collection because he liked them.
It was no different from collecting cars.
The behavior of a nouveau riche who suddenly got money and didn’t know how to use it, so he just squandered it.
...Though he had been capable enough to do that much.
But this was an enormous amount.
It felt as though every bottle he had collected over time had been emptied in one night.
Dozens upon dozens of bottles lay abandoned on the floor with their contents gone.
Ha Yujeong immediately swung open the large living-room window. She needed fresh air.
Her throat was already so raw she felt like coughing.
"Hey."
Behind her, as she coughed and opened the window, came a slightly slurred voice thick with alcohol.
When she turned, she saw Chae Eunha drinking from a bottle.
The tank top Choi Eunho used to wear was soaked in liquor and clung to her skin.
It was so oversized and cut so low that her cleavage was visible.
One shoulder was exposed, and in that direction the upper curve of her breast was half-bared.
She wasn’t wearing a bra, so her protruding nipples stood out, and she seemed to be wearing panties, though the tank top covered her hips so they weren’t visible.
On her long bare legs were clear streaks of liquor that had splashed when she’d been pouring it carelessly into her mouth.
Her face was flushed. She was drunk. But she was clearly not completely wasted.
The Blessing allowed her to get drunk, but not to lose her mind entirely.
"Ah, Chae Eunha-ssi. We hadn’t heard from you."
"No contact, my ass. I told you not to come to my house."
"...I’m sorry. I had something to deliver."
"Something?"
Ha Yujeong immediately took out Chae Eunha’s resident registration card, issued through an illegal route, and handed it over.
Chae Eunha took the card and looked down at it with a deeply conflicted expression—the card that bore a date from twenty-five years earlier.
Her hand was trembling as she held the registration card. Her brows were furrowed, her eyes complicated and unreadable.
She had probably thought it was something she could throw away easily, but once Shin Jaecheol had given up, this was something she might have to use for the foreseeable future... maybe even for life.
"For the time being, let’s put your return to Hunter work on hold."
"What?"
"First, you should adjust as Chae Eunha, and during that time we can say Choi Eunho is on assignment. Once you’ve adapted and it’s time to return, whether we announce that Choi Eunho became Chae Eunha, or whether we say Choi Eunho went missing and you’re returning as a replacement...”
"You fucking bitch. What the hell did you just say?"
Chae Eunha had clearly heard enough. She strode toward Ha Yujeong and grabbed her by the collar.
The strength in that grip was not something Ha Yujeong could resist. She jumped in surprise, but tried to respond calmly.
"Adjust? Adjust to what, you crazy..."
"You may not trust me, but I’ll help you first. I’m your manager, after all..."
"Heh. Yeah, nice. You said you’d help, right? Then fucking help me. Go on."
"Pardon? Wait, what are you planning to..."
Chae Eunha started dragging Ha Yujeong along with her.
There was no way to resist.
Like being dragged to an island, Ha Yujeong was seized by Chae Eunha and hauled into the bedroom.
And then, thud. She was thrown onto the bed.
"Ch-Chae Eunha-ssi? What are you doing...!"
"You said you’d help."
Chae Eunha stood over the fallen Ha Yujeong.
Whoosh.
In one swift motion, she stripped off the tank top, leaving herself in only panties.
Ha Yujeong shuddered and backed away on all fours, but Chae Eunha immediately climbed onto the bed after her and came down over her, bracing both arms on either side of her head.
Chae Eunha, who was at least five centimeters shorter than Ha Yujeong, had trapped her in place with all four limbs.
It was shocking.
Truly shocking.
She’d said she was helping, but there was no way she’d meant this.
This was, what, just a show of force? There was no way she was serious, right?
Ha Yujeong looked up at the woman who had pinned her down.
Red face. Tight lips, furrowed brow. Silver hair, swaying breasts, soft nipples, flawless white skin.
She looked like a doll. But that was all.
Unfortunately, Ha Yujeong was heterosexual, and all she felt was that she was looking at a beautiful sculpture—nothing more, nothing less.
All she felt was fear. Fear of this situation.
"P-please stop. This is..."
"Be quiet."
Chae Eunha’s cold voice held her in place.
Her right hand dropped to Ha Yujeong’s stomach. Click. The button on her suit jacket came undone.
Then her right hand moved up, unfastening the buttons on Ha Yujeong’s blouse one by one. Skilled. Too skilled.
Slowly, steadily. The blouse came apart completely, exposing Ha Yujeong’s blue bra.
She was terrified.
Terrified beyond reason.
Ha Yujeong had no idea how this had happened.
Chae Eunha was attacking her. That Choi Eunho—the one who hadn’t paid her any attention since the one time she slapped him.
The one who only ever touched women who wanted to cling to him.
He had half-forced her onto the bed and was stripping her clothes off against her will.
She tensed up.
Chae Eunha was not normal right now.
The thing in front of her was a predator.
That was what an S-class Hunter was.
Try to resist, and you could die. No—there was a certainty of death in it.
Still, she was clinging to the belief that the thing before her was a human being.
This was a private meeting, after all.
It was a mistake. If I’d expected her condition to be unstable, I should have met her at the Association instead... somewhere she could’ve been protected.
The moment she was regretting that choice, Chae Eunha’s warm hand slipped beneath the blouse and through the gap between shirt and body, sliding between Ha Yujeong’s back and the mattress.
Ha Yujeong gasped in shock and was just about to scream when, with a click, the sensation of her chest being squeezed vanished in an instant.
The hook had come undone.
"Eeeek—"
Just as she tried to shout, Chae Eunha’s left hand, which had been free all this time, covered her mouth.
Even if she tried to struggle, that hand was like a heavy rock—not crushing her, but pressing just hard enough to keep her from moving.
She could make a tiny sound, but there was no chance it would carry outside.
Ha Yujeong trembled violently.
With shaking eyes, she looked into Chae Eunha’s gaze as it stared down at her with nothing but coldness.
It was a detached look. She wasn’t being seen as a person. She was being looked at like an object.
Chae Eunha used her right hand to take Ha Yujeong’s bra and toss it off the bed.
Ha Yujeong felt the air touch her chest. She swallowed hard. Her breasts were fully exposed.
Her chest was almost, almost touching Chae Eunha’s as it lay bared before her.
A slender body, yet one with muscle and volume still alive in it—a body with real appeal.
That was Ha Yujeong’s body. Sparse body hair, small nipples that stood out as defining features.
Her waist and hip line were beautiful, and her breasts were moderate enough not to feel burdensome, a figure with plenty of demand.
A body shape that sat right between what women wanted and what men wanted.
Chae Eunha raised herself up. Her ample breasts, so different from Ha Yujeong’s, swayed.
Chae Eunha extended her right hand and placed it over Ha Yujeong’s chest. Ha Yujeong held her breath, tense, and then felt a sudden urge to scream at the hand that came down on her.
But her mouth was covered, and she couldn’t make a sound.
She was crying.
This was sexual assault.
Choi Eunho had been trash, but she never imagined he’d go this far.
And to do it to someone who’d at least tried to help him. Of course, it was also true that if Choi Eunho disappeared, Ha Yujeong would be affected too.
Even so, that didn’t mean she hadn’t been worried.
It was true she had decided to help not just officially, but personally too.
She could never forgive this.
Never, ever.
"A-at that time, yo, you..."
She forced the words out through the hand covering her mouth.
But Ha Yujeong couldn’t finish.
Chae Eunha was crying.
Even while touching Ha Yujeong’s chest. Even while pinning her down. Even while committing sexual assault.
There was not a shred of sexual excitement on her face. Her face was red, but only because she was drunk.
Her pussy was bone-dry. This was in no way a situation for sexual activity.
Chae Eunha’s nipples were so soft they didn’t harden at all. She had not even the slightest bit of sexual curiosity about this situation.
This was... merely a confirmation.
And a wish.
That some trace of masculinity still remained in her.
That some heterosexual instinct still remained.
That she might still be able to feel sexual arousal toward Ha Yujeong, whom she disliked but had found attractive in appearance—and that she wanted that to be true.
But it was dry and colorless.
It was closer to work than anything else.
Chae Eunha had not done a single thing because she wanted to do it.
Even looking at Ha Yujeong’s naked body, even looking at that alluring figure, she felt nothing.
Nothing... she wanted nothing.
Even while she forced herself to touch that chest, no thought came with it at all.
"...Fuck."
Chae Eunha took her hand off Ha Yujeong.
Then she slowly moved away.
She sank down onto the floor.
She stared at the ground.
And then she began to cry quietly. Sniffling. Not too loudly. Just softly.
"Hhk, hhk... It’s over, so get out... hhk..."
Ha Yujeong pushed herself up.
What was she feeling?
Somehow, the fear was gone.
The thing here was not Choi Eunho.
It was just something else that wanted to be Choi Eunho.
"Ha... isn’t I the one who wants to cry?"
Her voice, which had been shaking, had finally steadied enough for her to speak.
With a long sigh, Ha Yujeong walked toward Chae Eunha.
She was small. Her curled-up body looked even smaller now.
Ha Yujeong took her hand. And tried to pull her up.
Chae Eunha did not resist. She seemed to have no thoughts at all.
Ha Yujeong brought her back to the bed.
And they lay down together. Under the blanket.
Both naked, neither of them speaking.
She simply held the woman who was quietly crying.
"Fuck... don’t pity me... How arrogant."
"Yes, yes. Sleep. Just sleep."
Even now.
Ha Yujeong had always been weak to a woman’s tears.
That had been a weakness born because of Choi Eunho—yet somehow, that weakness had found its way back to him.
What irony was this?
In the end, Ha Yujeong decided to lend this two-years-younger little sister her arms.
Not for official reasons, but personal ones.
One way or another.
Because she didn’t want to watch someone collapse right in front of her.