Get Used to It (3)
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Kang Juhyuk... D-class. Nothing especially unusual about him, really...
Ha Yujeong considered the name of the man Eunha had been bringing around, a detail she’d learned without much effort at all.
It wasn’t even what you’d call digging. The Great Rift entry-and-exit records were easy enough to access through the Hunter Association, and since hunters were logged by party when they entered as a group, Kang Juhyuk’s name had surfaced immediately.
As the manager in charge of A-class hunter Chae Eunha, she already had access to her Great Rift records. All she had to do was check.
And, as it turned out, it was exactly as she’d expected.
He was the laborer from the Association-registered salvage team that had gone in first during the A-class gate incident in the capital—the team led by B-class Park Geon.
He was the same man Eunha had personally rescued and brought back out with her.
D-class hunters were registered with the Association in name only, really. They weren’t the sort of people the Association actively managed.
If they wanted work, they could go work. No one would stop them.
Which was another way of saying they weren’t exactly the kind of talent the Association would miss if they disappeared.
As a manager, there was no way Yujeong could see Kang Juhyuk’s bank balance, so she had no way of knowing just how much of his gear Eunha had financed for him. Still, if she was talking about spending “a ridiculous amount,” then unless she’d bought him the very best protector available, that kind of cost shouldn’t have been possible.
Even if there’d been additional expenses for scrolls, camp supplies, weapons, and the like, that would still only add up to a few million won at most. If she was buying only the expensive stuff, maybe it climbed into the ten-million range.
There was no way they’d known each other before.
Yujeong knew Choi Eunho’s social circles well.
He’d always been a man whose hobby was basically one-night stands, and for the past two years, his private life had amounted to nothing more than using money and his status as an S-class hunter to hook women and toy with them.
Sex, sex, sex. Everything was sex with that man.
For the first year after he’d been registered as an S-class hunter, at least, she’d thought he’d still spent his money recklessly while keeping up some kind of normal hobby. But at some point, it seemed he’d simply gone mad with desire.
Of course, she had no way of knowing that Choi Eunho had been clinging to women while desperately seeking the warmth of a mother, so all it looked like to her was pure lust. It wasn’t as if he’d had a girlfriend.
She didn’t know how Choi Eunho had lived before his S-class registration, but once he’d become S-class, it looked as if he’d cut everything off.
In the end, all that remained at his side were a handful of women he’d slept with and then parted on good terms with. He didn’t even have proper acquaintances anymore.
Kang Juhyuk had definitely met Eunha in that gate.
She didn’t know.
She really didn’t.
If the Choi Eunho Yujeong knew were in front of her, he wouldn’t have spared a single glance for a man.
Staring at the photo printed on Kang Juhyuk’s Association registration file, Yujeong felt a nagging unease settle over her.
Well, sure, his face wasn’t ugly... but he wasn’t exactly devastatingly handsome, either.
Eunha had changed somehow after becoming what she was now... she’d said the Outer God transformed her as its price.
If it was the power of a god, then it wouldn’t be strange for her brain structure to be rewritten into a woman’s in an instant...
But if she was still insisting she’d somehow get her original body back, that she wasn’t going to give up...
Was she planning to become a woman and go around sleeping with men the way she had when she was a man?
But then again, if she was taking him all the way to the Great Rift, then he clearly wasn’t just some sex partner.
And if she was supporting his gear and all that... then maybe he was just another woman caught by a smooth-talking hustler.
And honestly... Eunha had that kind of scent about her, too.
And the amount of money involved was no joke.
Should I meet him...? Ask her what he is to Eunha? But no, who am I to ask something like that...
But no matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t stop worrying.
Thinking that, Yujeong grabbed at her head.
Was she being nosy, or was this just ordinary concern? Even she couldn’t tell.
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But unlike Yujeong, who was worried that Kang Juhyuk might be the one whipping Eunha around by the scruff of the neck, Juhyuk himself was just as firmly in Eunha’s grip.
...What should I do?
He woke up in the morning still half asleep, shuffled into the bathroom, and washed his face and brushed his teeth until his mind finally cleared.
Last night had been good.
He’d lain there right before falling asleep, drowsy and out of it.
But he’d still wanted to hear Nuna’s voice.
So Kang Juhyuk, with a touch of shameless pleading in his message, had texted her.
What surprised him was that Chae Eunha had called him right back.
With a fluttering heart, he’d picked up immediately.
And then... they’d talked for nearly thirty minutes.
She didn’t seem to be in a bad mood, either.
She listened closely to everything he said and answered his questions properly.
They’d talked while returning from the Great Rift, too, but he’d been struggling just to walk then, so they hadn’t really been able to talk much.
...Had there ever been a woman who treated him this warmly, even if her tone was sharp?
No. Absolutely not. And it was hard to imagine there ever would be.
Maybe that was why, even though Chae Eunha had started by saying flat-out, “I’m going to use you as a dildo and throw you away when I’m done,” he still couldn’t bring himself to give up and kept wanting to cross the line.
Park Geon was precious to him too... the older brother who had looked after him.
But Park Geon had his own life. He was going to build a family of his own.
If there was someone he needed to become independent from, then Chae Eunha...
Maybe, if things went well...
Ah—anyway! It was hard to say. Hard even to imagine. But when Kang Juhyuk pictured something like that, a strange ticklish feeling spread through his stomach.
Sex was good.
No, of course... sex was even better.
Being held in her arms, and holding her in his.
Touching her most sensitive, most secret places, then pushing into her from the inside.
Jamming his own thing deep into that hot, wet core of hers... no matter how many times he did it, he didn’t think he’d ever get tired of it.
And yet.
Even if physical pleasure couldn’t beat that.
There was something else. The feeling of connecting. That thirty-minute phone call last night had made him feel closer to her in a way that went beyond a single round of sex.
Chae Eunha would never admit it, of course, but honestly, it had felt like they were flirting.
Which made it all the better.
But then, what was he supposed to do?
There had been one lightning-bolt statement in the middle of that wonderful time.
—I was thinking we could order delivery and eat at your place.
...Nuna was coming to my room?
Wait. Huh? What? We definitely... had sex yesterday, right?
What was my arousal level again? Seven? Wasn’t it at zero?
Suddenly? Why suddenly? Why is she suddenly coming to my studio apartment? I live there alone, for God’s sake.
Why, why is this happening? Why do you keep tempting me!!
Whatever else it meant, having someone you were interested in come over to your place was exciting.
It was exciting, but...
“...Will this be all right?”
Fresh out of the shower, Kang Juhyuk looked around his one-room apartment.
It was a tiny place. A bed, a wall-mounted TV, a small table. A little fridge. A wall-mounted air conditioner.
There wasn’t even a proper shoe rack where the entryway should have been, and right beside the front door sat the sink and gas range.
There was a tiny bathroom, too, and since there wasn’t even a closet, the only place to hang clothes was a single rolling rack.
It was old. It smelled a little, too. Thankfully, no bugs showed up.
It was shabby.
Honestly, it was pitiful beyond words.
When he’d been sleepy, he’d said it on impulse, happy just to have her come over...
But now that some of the fatigue had lifted and his head was clearer, he started to feel embarrassed about showing this place to Chae Eunha.
She’d definitely think even more poorly of him...
He was already so far away from her. He was afraid she’d drift even farther.
He wondered if he should tell her, even now, that they should just eat out instead.
But it was hard to say that, too.
So first, he hurried to clean up—well, there wasn’t much to clean, but still.
He should at least finish the dishes he’d been putting off. Would she want ice cream? Should he buy some?
Alcohol...? No, maybe that would be weird. Alcohol... alcohol, alcohol.
J-just in case.
With that thought, Kang Juhyuk sprayed air freshener around the bed for no real reason at all.
He just hoped the place wouldn’t smell unpleasant.
.
Parking in Kang Juhyuk’s neighborhood was a nightmare.
It was an old district, so while you could stop for a minute, there was almost nowhere you could leave a car for a few hours.
Maybe taking a taxi would have been better.
But creating a situation where I’d be alone with some stranger wasn’t exactly a smart move, either.
Not when I couldn’t trust this body around just anyone.
Anyway, I parked in the middle of a narrow alley.
The car I’d come in was a sedan—not like I was going on a joyride or anything.
If I parked a nice car like this on a cramped little street and some passing idiot scratched it, it’d scratch my nerves right along with it, so this was probably for the best.
I’m here. Which room are you in?
After sending the message and waiting a moment for a reply, I took a hand mirror out of my tote bag.
I wasn’t exactly going somewhere to be on display, so I hadn’t gone all out with the styling, but after telling Kang Juhyuk to meet my standards, I couldn’t exactly wander around looking pathetic.
I’d squeezed out the milk before leaving, and I was wearing a black dress. The kind I bought last time seemed to suit him, didn’t it? Whatever. I’d at least match that much.
At first I’d felt weird about skirts, but I’d already worn one once. Thinking about it, it actually covered more than I expected.
My face in the hand mirror looked... well, still good.
I’d barely done my makeup, really. I’d skipped a few steps because it was a hassle. Still, it was a relief that my natural face could carry the rest.
“Nuna!”
I was checking the mirror one more time for any place I’d smudged something wrong when I heard Kang Juhyuk’s voice.
He was walking carefully, clearly wincing from the blisters on his feet, and it looked kind of ridiculous.
Honestly, tomorrow would probably hurt more than today.
He should’ve just stayed in his room and waited.
“I asked which room you were in. Why are you out here?”
“How could I not come out? Let’s go upstairs. It’s room 403.”
“Fine, fine.”
Still, the puppy-dog look on his face was kind of cute.
Dogs were cute just for wagging their tails, weren’t they?
It wasn’t bad seeing someone bigger than me wagging his tail because he was happy.
It was only because he was a man that it was annoying.
Kang Juhyuk’s building was five stories tall, and because there was no elevator, we had to go up the stairs.
What a worn-out building.
Each floor had four rooms lined up in a row, with an outdoor corridor.
Room 403, was it? We climbed to the fourth floor and headed to the third room, following Kang Juhyuk.
“Oh? What’s this? It’s the kid from next door. You’re not off work yet, are you?”
“Ah, yes. I, uh... got another job.”
“Oh, really?”
I was following behind Kang Juhyuk when a strange voice suddenly came from the side.
Looking past his shoulder, I saw a scruffy-looking man smoking in front of Room 404.
He was speaking to Kang Juhyuk in a familiar tone, but Juhyuk answered him with a slightly uneasy expression.
“You just got that job, didn’t you? A man’s got to have some backbone. Stick with the new job for a while.”
“Yes, sir, yes.”
“Right. Well, then your brother here should head in... huh?”
The scruffy man must have finished his cigarette, because he flicked the butt to the end of the corridor and turned to go back inside.
Just as he was about to head in, though... he must have noticed me standing behind Kang Juhyuk, because he froze with a jolt.
In that tiny instant, what burst out of him was lust.
The primitive reaction of a man standing in front of a woman with a body worth putting his hands on flashed into view for a moment.
My body tried to react at once, and Chae Haeun started to stir.
Disgusted, I clung a little tighter to Kang Juhyuk.
“Th-there... that woman... don’t tell me...”
Since I was practically glued to Kang Juhyuk, it seemed the man’s confusion had overtaken the lust that had flared up first.
He kept looking back and forth between me and Kang Juhyuk, sounding genuinely doubtful.
“Go inside, Nuna.”
“Huh, she’s really here?!”
Maybe he’d noticed my irritation.
Or maybe he simply didn’t like another man looking at me at all.
Either way, Kang Juhyuk reached out at once, caught my left hand in his right, and opened the door to Room 403, pulling me inside.
It was almost like being dragged in. He’d grabbed my hand without asking, but...
I was going in there anyway, so I didn’t resist much and let him lead me inside.
Even in that brief moment, the man’s eyes were still trailing down over my face and the lines of my body, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.
My body shivered. I had to stop Chae Haeun from swaying her hips toward him.
At least I was still low on desire. That made it easy enough to hold her down.
He must have planned to make Kang Juhyuk jealous by letting our eyes meet in some weird little dance with the neighbor,
then use that to rape me again and push me toward sex.
I couldn’t let my guard down.
That was what I was thinking when, little by little, I began to notice the heat of Kang Juhyuk’s right hand around my left.
His firm fingers were gripping my soft hand tightly.
...Mm.
“Hey. You can let go now.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Do you know him?”
“Hmm... well, he’s my neighbor, so I see his face often enough.”
“Then he’s just some stranger. What right does a stranger have to boss you around about your job? What a nosy bastard.”
“Yeah, he’s kind of unpleasant, isn’t he?”
Kang Juhyuk, seizing on that, immediately agreed with me.
Almost like he’d been waiting for it.
What a funny guy. Was it really that amusing to hear me trash another man? Worry about the right thing to be jealous of.