Drawing a New Line (5)

After sending Ha Yujeong off, I flopped back down on the sofa.

Maybe it was because Chae Haeun had gone and slept with Kang Juhyuk behind my back... but for the first time in a while, the craving felt strangely subdued.

It had already been two days, and even now, whenever I sat still, that fullness kept hammering at my head. It felt like my cunt had gone limp with pleasure ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and simply stayed that way.

And yet, perversely enough, the calmer it got, the more I found myself thinking about sex.

Not in the sense that I had to do it, or that I was desperate for it—just because it felt good.

It was the same sort of feeling I’d had back when Choi Eunho used to go around fucking people...

This is starting to feel like sinking deeper and deeper into a swamp.

Shivering at that strange disgust, I picked up my smartphone.

Still, maybe because the craving itself had already been vented, sex didn’t keep tugging at me while I was doing something else.

For now, anything would do. Back when I had time to kill like this, I’d just switch on a random chat app and look for a girl.

Ugh, so it always comes back to sex... a cock, huh. A cock. It really is strange. It’s not like it’s doing anything more than pounding in and out.

It just scrapes the inner walls a little, nudges the cervix to stimulate the fornix, soaks itself in slick fluids, and takes a thick load of semen inside.

So why does it feel that good?

Why, indeed. It was this body.

But the sex-crazed freaks who’d obsessed over me had been just as mad about cocks, too.

Not all of them, sure, but some women really were like that. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Had they felt the same way I did now?

Jesus, then why didn’t they just grab any guy? Why were they making my life hell? I’m not even obsessed with Kang Juhyuk.

When Kang Juhyuk crossed my mind, what popped up instead was my smartphone’s message history.

He must have felt awkward calling, because there’d been one message last night and another this morning.

Of course, I hadn’t bothered replying. I had no interest in making small talk with him.

More than that, because he started feeling like nothing more than a dildo, thinking about Kang Juhyuk just led straight back to sex anyway.

And once sex came to mind, it felt like the desire would start building all over again even though it had just been relieved, which made the whole thing feel like a total loss.

What an irony. I’d just used Kang Juhyuk to relieve the craving, and then the mere thought of Kang Juhyuk started piling the craving back up again.

So unless it was absolutely unavoidable, I tended to avoid Kang Juhyuk.

Still... I can’t just keep ignoring him. Based on what I’d seen so far, Kang Juhyuk was a little narrow-minded.

If I kept acting cold and didn’t give him even a crumb of affection, he’d probably end up the kind of trash who tried to force sex by acting domineering.

If I just quit my job, bought gear, and headed to the Great Rift already, I wouldn’t have to waste time like this.

Then another message came in.

Finally, something had come of it. Pushing things out one line at a time was too annoying, so I called him right away.

I laughed in disbelief, but the cool, detached part of my brain immediately admitted it could happen.

Come to think of it, it did sound weird. A woman driving around in an expensive car saying she wanted to take a D-class hunter with her... the whole picture looked off.

I’d told him not to talk about the sex part, so Kang Juhyuk must have left that out and simply explained it as, “That hunter said I could quit there and work with her.” At most, that was probably all he’d said.

But even so, what could someone driving a car like that possibly be trying to squeeze out of a bottom-rung D-class guy like Kang Juhyuk?

Me: “But at the office, they must’ve seen me getting out of the car. And that I was in the car with you... it got a little noisy.”

Juhyuk: “W-well, I guess that makes sense.”

Me: “What are they going to do about it?”

Of course they’d make assumptions. That was exactly why I’d gone there.

I’d made it clear that I was standing behind Kang Juhyuk. Whatever the reason, it meant I was backing him.

Even if they didn’t know me, they’d know what my car implied. They’d figure some rich sponsor had latched onto him, so there had to be something to it.

Me: “So you’re home now?”

Juhyuk: “Yes. Since things turned out that way, Geon-hyung told me to just go straight there. I met the people from the office yesterday, and Geon-hyung said we should have a farewell dinner, so we had a work party too.”

Me: “So that’s why you didn’t tell me yesterday.”

Juhyuk: “Right... the office people kept asking what happened inside the gate and kept offering me drinks, so I didn’t really have a chance to think straight.”

Me: “You didn’t spill everything, did you?”

Juhyuk: “N-no. I didn’t get drunk. I kept drinking lots of water and held out. I just told them you had a good impression of me, noona.”

Me: “Well... that’s enough, I guess.”

By now, the people over there probably thought Kang Juhyuk and I were flirting with each other.

Fine. I’d expected as much the moment I showed up in that car.

Even if I’d gone around keeping my head down, the moment the two of us started raiding the Great Rift together, people would have figured something like that anyway.

Denying it one by one would only make it look even stranger. Better to ignore it and move on.

Me: “Come out. We’re buying gear.”

Juhyuk: “Yes!”

Fate is a funny thing. Whether by coincidence or something else... it can lead to a pretty good meeting.

Kang Juhyuk thought back to yesterday as he stood outside his studio apartment and checked his face on his smartphone screen.

The moment he’d arrived at the office yesterday, chaos had broken out inside.

Those two kept going around asking what his relationship with that woman was, and whether the vacation he’d taken two days ago had been spent with her.

Honestly, he wanted to answer, Yeah, that’s right.

Chae Eunha had come by, and it wasn’t like there was anything she needed to confirm... so what was there to hide?

That was what he’d thought for a moment, but he’d dropped it just as quickly, knowing it would only end up feeling empty.

Still, seeing Jin Sia looking at him like, You? With that hunter? had been oddly satisfying.

She hadn’t said it, but she’d definitely been thinking it.

She was the sort of person who always looked at him like, You know you don’t belong here, right?

Don’t let anybody push you around... or something like that.

Chae Eunha was a proud woman. If she was being considered an elite top-tier A-class hunter, then she had every right to be proud.

And if she was confident enough to say she could handle the Great Rift on her own, maybe she was even close to S-class.

If not for that unlucky thing she’d picked up a few days ago—the so-called “curse”—he probably never would’ve gotten tangled up with Kang Juhyuk in the first place.

That brought Park Geon’s words back to him. Fate was impossible to predict, he’d said.

Kang Juhyuk had told him honestly that it wasn’t like that, but Geon still patted him on the shoulder.

Would I try to pull someone away like this if I didn’t care about them at all? And a D-class, no less. You never know. You’re interested too, aren’t you? Give it your best shot.

Ha.

Geon-hyung had seen the moment when Eunha came over and asked for his number, so he probably thought that way.

In truth, it had just been a warning sign disguised as a way to keep an eye on her.

But still...

With a creak, the car door opened.

“You’re early today.”

An SUV. A black van.

Unlike the red sports car from last time, Chae Eunha had pulled up in a huge long-body vehicle, and she was still breathtaking.

Even though she hadn’t dressed up. Even though she’d come in something comfortable, with almost no makeup on.

Even though her hair hadn’t been set the way it had been last time, and she’d just tied it back loosely.

Kang Juhyuk swallowed.

Do you still not want this woman?

...How could he not?

Me: “Hello, Eunha noona. You drove out in something different today.”

Eunha: “I told you we were going to buy gear. That car’s for going out to have fun, not for work.”

Me: “Right, I guess so.”

Kang Juhyuk climbed in through the side step by the passenger seat, the SUV’s high chassis making him feel like he was boarding a small truck with a roof.

It was a four-seater, but the rear seats had been folded down, and inside that boxy cabin sat Chae ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Eunha in a tight white T-shirt and long jeans, looking far more relaxed than she had yesterday.

Her body was so explosively attractive that it was impossible to feel relaxed looking at her, but at least the outfit itself was comfortable.

Maybe because the car was so high off the ground, the seat had been raised all the way up too, which gave the whole thing a strangely cute feel.

“Hey.”

Lost in the sight of her long white hair and the line of her white T-shirt, Kang Juhyuk didn’t even realize she’d been looking at him.

Me: “Ah, sorry. I’ll buckle up...”

Eunha: “Not that. What’s with your hair?”

Chae Eunha reached toward him. Because the cabin was so wide that she couldn’t quite reach him from where she sat, she lifted herself up and leaned across toward him.

His eyes were briefly snared by the way her breasts sank and shifted, but he hurriedly forced his gaze up to her face.

With her right hand, Chae Eunha gently combed through his bangs and neatened the messy shape of his hair.

Every time her fingers brushed his forehead, his chest started thumping.

She’d made him this tense when she fixed his hair at the hotel, too.

Whenever Chae Eunha showed this kind of small, caring attention, Kang Juhyuk felt as if he were being tossed around by every touch of her hand.

Not that he wasn’t being tossed around already.

Honestly... she was sharp, and she had a nasty edge to her.

But in a strangely unmistakable way, she also had this habit of looking after him.

Looking after him... was that even the right phrase? Well, anyway.

She dressed him up, told him to eat because he was hungry, told him not to get discouraged, drove him places, and showed him her own face so he wouldn’t be looked down on...

Come to think of it, that wasn’t just taking care of him.

“There. That’s better.”

“T-thank you, noona.”

“Forget it. Just don’t go in there and start trembling like a coward. That’d be even more embarrassing.”

With that, Chae Eunha drove off.

Even through narrow alleys in a big car, her driving was completely smooth, with none of the hesitation he would’ve expected.

Maybe that confidence came from the simple attitude of, If I scratch it, I’ll just pay for it.

“So... what kind of gear are we talking about?”

“Gear is gear. What kind of question is that? You said you’d come out even though you don’t know the first thing about it?”

“If you tell me to come out, I’m coming out no matter what I’m doing.”

“...Hah. Yeah. Yeah, you do know your place.”

At his breezy answer, Chae Eunha blushed slightly.

It was really Chae Haeun reacting from inside her, but of course Kang Juhyuk had no way of knowing that.

“You’ve never even had hunter gear fitted before?”

“Well... I wasn’t a combatant. You could say my first real battle was the last gate... and even then I was just a porter.”

“You didn’t have any protection gear either?”

“About the gate I went into back then... honestly, I kind of forced Geon-hyung to let me come along. He did give me something, but it was more like his personal gear than an official issue item.”

“Then we’re buying everything from scratch, just like I thought.”

Good thing I brought the big car, then.

Chae Eunha added that casually.

“You’re buying mine?”

“Who else would I be buying it for? You’re unusually dense today.”

“It’s just... I don’t know how much I can afford with the money I’ve saved.”

“What are you talking about? Where would you even get money like that? You saved up a hundred million won?”

“If you leave out my studio deposit... I’ve got about six million won.”

“Ah. Yeah. Fine.”

As if she no longer needed to hear another word, Chae Eunha cut him off.

“I’ll cover that much. I’m buying, so you can just take it and use it.”

“T-thank you. I’ll save up and pay you back.”

“You? Well... if you keep running the Great Rift, maybe that much money will pile up. Never mind. It’s pocket change anyway. Hunter companies support their own hunters’ gear, don’t they? Think of it like that.”

How could she say that so casually?

Even cheap gear for hunters cost at least several hundred thousand won, and once you started talking about items that used mana stones to replace conventional energy sources, the value went without saying.

People even said a hunter’s greatest asset was their gear.

Of course... as far as Kang Juhyuk could see, Chae Eunha didn’t seem to have gear like that at all.

Was it that she simply didn’t need it?

Chae Eunha drove toward the Hunter Market.

She parked and got out. The entire building was a massive market where hunters bought and sold equipment.

It was a closed-off district where entry was restricted unless you were someone involved in hunter work.

Under the hot sun, Chae Eunha put on sunglasses and stepped out of the car first.

“Why would I use pocket change you give me? Come on. Get out. We’ve got a lot to buy today.”

The old electronics district had long since been transformed into a place for trading hunter gear like this.

Hunter equipment wasn’t something you could pick out from an online ad; it was always best to handle it in person.

There were hunters in the provinces who had trouble getting into the capital and ended up ordering mass-produced items from large companies, but even they usually came into a market like this and chose their gear in person whenever they could spare a day.

Since anything touched by mana stones or mana-laced materials was involved, it was impossible to mass-produce it to a fixed standard in a factory.

And because the number of hunters was limited, the usual economies of scale barely applied. “Mass-produced” items were mass-produced in name only; the selection was thin, and the prices were high compared with the quality.

Thinking all that, I walked into the market. Three years ago, this had been one of the places I used most often.

I’d bought my gear by pounding the pavement. Because I kept using cheap equipment, it would often shatter in a single fight, so even when I got paid, most of my money went right back into buying more gear.

There weren’t many people in the market, but there were enough that it still felt busy.

Hunters, people buying byproducts to reprocess later, people planning to resell things somewhere else.

“Wow, wow... this is insane. It feels like I’ve walked into a fantasy world!”

“...So the problem isn’t that you’re nervous. It’s that you’re completely dazzled.”

“Hey, isn’t this an enchanted sword? That’s amazing. Doesn’t it look incredible?”

“Hey. Keep walking. We’re not here to buy garbage like that.”

Kang Juhyuk’s eyes were shining as he looked over the swords and spears on display.

Sure. If you became a man, it made sense to have a romantic streak about this kind of thing. Your own weapon... how cool was that?

Even when men went up into the mountains, they’d grab a branch and swing it around as if it were a sword.

But a hunter’s weapon was only useful if it didn’t break.

In the end, the basics were just swinging a weapon while wrapping it in mana. Some people did insert mana stones into their weapons and chase higher output, but that was usually only for lower-rank hunters who lacked attack power.

At S-class level, your base output was so absurd that it was enough if the weapon simply didn’t fall apart. That went doubly for mages.

So what really mattered wasn’t the weapon Kang Juhyuk was gawking at now, but the protective gear that would keep his body safe.

Besides, you weren’t the one fighting, so why were you even looking at weapons?

“Hey. Come here. You don’t need a weapon.”

“...Huh?”

“You’re not going to be fighting. We’re buying something to protect your body, a healing scroll for emergencies, and maybe some simple camping gear for sleeping and eating.”

“Well, that does make sense.”

Yeah, exactly. You’re a porter in there.

Kang Juhyuk muttered that as he walked toward me.

His expression was resigned, almost as if he’d accepted that sort of life at the bottom of the D-class ladder.

I hated seeing that.

“Go pick something out.”

“Pardon?”

“How am I supposed to know what you usually use? Pick something that fits your hands. Nothing too big. Something easy to carry.”

“I choose whatever I want? As for the cost or anything like that...”

“Enough. If we’re buying it, then buy something enchanted that’ll actually help in battle. If you just pick a slab of plain metal like I would, it won’t do you any good.”

As I said that, I shoved a card into his hand.

He took it with a dazed look, glancing back and forth between me and the card with cautious eyes.

He’d accepted it, but he didn’t seem to want to watch me wasting money on him no matter what.

“What the hell are you doing? Go on. You’re not leaving?”

“No, I mean—yes, I am. I’ll go. Should I buy from over there?”

“That place looks old. Go to the store across the street. Big companies have worse value for money, but their customer service is good. They’ll fit you out properly.”

It’d probably be twice as expensive for the same thing compared with the shops I used to run around and compare, but at least they wouldn’t sell anything shady.

And there was no way he could judge quality properly on his own anyway.

Honestly, three years ago I only ever looked at cheap junk, and after getting the blessing I stopped caring so much about equipment, so I’d lost the eye for good gear too.

In that case, it was better to pay and get help from a professional.

“Go ahead and pick. Don’t worry about the money. I’ll be choosing gear over on the other side of the street, so call me once you’ve bought something.”

“Okay. I will.”

After sending Kang Juhyuk off first, I turned around and headed for the opposite side of the street as well.

Putting some distance between us, I barely managed to calm the heat that had been creeping up inside me.

Fuck.

My body was getting stimulated.

More accurately... it wasn’t stimulating itself without cause.

I was the one thinking about him, and my body had simply adjusted to match.

It wasn’t that the desire was building up—it was just that I’d been making dirty little thoughts myself.

From the car onward, that bastard Kang Juhyuk had kept sneaking glances at me.

The gaze that kept sticking to my chest and ass, the one that kept drifting over my face. I hadn’t even told him to look somewhere else, because I figured he’d just say I was pretty.

I didn’t think he’d listen anyway.

Every time I felt those eyes on me, my body reacted a little. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠wasn’t sensitive since the craving itself wasn’t building up, but... there was the faintest little ripple of pleasure.

That tiny spark of pleasure was more than enough to make me think about sex.

Kang Juhyuk’s arms. Kang Juhyuk’s shoulders.

Kang Juhyuk’s back... thighs. Legs. His legs tangled with mine, his rough hands...

The cock driving into my body would feel so good—

Even while I was saying the things I had to say about buying gear,

even while I was thinking about preparing to enter the Great Rift and doing what I had to do—

sex kept creeping in from the other side of my mind, and that alone was embarrassing enough to make me want to die.

I wasn’t some guy who’d just lost his virginity yesterday, so why was I still thinking about the sex from two days ago...? It was disgusting.

Still, maybe it was for the best.

If this kept going, the craving might have surged up all at once.

While Kang Juhyuk was busy picking out childish weapons, it was probably better if I kept my distance for a while.

Maybe it was because of the heat, but my insides felt especially hot today.

Somewhere in the stores full of useful supplies for the Hunter Market, there had to be something worth taking into the Great Rift.