The Interloper
"What should we do now?"
There was still plenty of time before dinner needed to be started. Now that the shopping was done, she clearly had no interest in just heading home. A walk around the neighborhood, then? I was about to suggest it when her phone suddenly rang.
"Oh? It's Ye-rim."
Ye-rim? Han Ye-rim? The girl who'd come up and introduced herself to me yesterday flashed through my mind — those persistent, clinging eyes. I'd had a gut feeling she was going to be trouble, but of all the moments for it to land, it had to be now.
"Yeah. Uh-huh. Oh, really? Okay! I'll come by today before it gets late!"
Ugh. Brushing it off yesterday by vaguely saying she'd pick her things up today might have been a mistake. If I'd seen this coming, I would have phrased it differently. Either way, the milk was already spilled.
The call ended, and Min-ah turned to look at me.
"Uncle, I think I need to stop by my friend's place."
"I heard yesterday. You left all the clothes you bought over there, right?"
"Ah!! Yes. So you already knew everything."
Embarrassed that she'd gotten so drunk yesterday she'd practically collapsed, she scratched her cheek and giggled. God. Every little thing she did was adorable.
That aside — what was I supposed to do here? She'd said she'd go today, so the options were now or after dinner. Going now risked breaking this momentum. Especially that girl... I couldn't get a read on how she planned to interfere. But going after dinner wouldn't change much either. I could push things a little further, sure, but the flow would still snap before I ever got Min-ah into bed. What to do...
I sank into thought, and Min-ah, watching me, spoke up.
"You can go home first! I'll be back in no time."
Damn. That was a slip. She must have taken my silence as reluctance to take her there. A faint hurt flickered across her face.
If I rush to explain myself, I'll only confirm what she thinks.
In situations like this, you deliberately react slowly. Calm and unhurried, as if you'd simply been thinking about something else.
"Hmm? You want to go now?"
"Yes."
Her expression... changed. Thankfully, it bloomed right back into that same bright, sunny smile as before. Safe, for now. Time to clean up the mistake.
I lifted the shopping bags.
"Then let's drop these off at home and go together. I'll take you."
Min-ah's face lit up.
"You mean it?! And once we get to your place, no saying you're tired or making up some other excuse!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Why would I say something like that. I'm too busy scoring points with you.
She bounced up and down, delighted, and those luscious breasts of hers bounced right along with her, thick with the fragrance of spring.
Ah... spring really is a wonderful season.
I wanted to taste that butterfly already. My grip on the bags tightened.
Ye-rim's place, interestingly enough, wasn't far from Min-ah's at all. About a fifteen-minute drive. Close enough you could walk there whenever you wanted. And that, more than anything, sat wrong with me.
Not a favorable condition.
My instincts were talking. She was an interloper in this hunt. This wasn't the first time one had crashed a pursuit mid-hunt — I'd been at this long enough to have dealt with it more times than I could count. What grated was that whenever they showed up, the difficulty always doubled.
Please let my instincts be wrong this time...
Those eyes from yesterday surfaced in my mind. Eyes gleaming with greed. People with eyes like that were dangerous. The woman I'd had to hastily avoid at the airport not long ago had worn the exact same look.
Best not to run into her at all, but...
As I got out of the car, Min-ah waved at me and called out.
"Come on, Uncle! If you're late, I'm leaving without you~!"
"Yeah. Coming!"
At her call I walked over at a near-jog and stepped into the elevator. Min-ah pressed in close beside me and giggled.
Tanking my score just to keep my distance would be stupid. Especially when the prey is a prize like this.
I lifted one arm and pulled Min-ah into a full embrace. The soft give of her breast pressed against my side. A flinch. She'd been the one to glue herself to me a second ago, and now she was the one tensing up. Heh. Women were creatures like that — fine when they closed the distance themselves, but the moment the other person did it, they got nervous. That anxiety just needed to be soothed over. I gave her arm a slow, gentle pat, as if to say I had no intention of hurting her. It's okay. I'm still the same uncle you've always known. I have no intention of hurting you.
After five or six of those pats, Min-ah's tension melted away. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my torso.
"Uncle."
"Hmm?"
"Uncle, you know you're really weird, right?"
I knew what she meant, but I played dumb and asked back. The Min-ah saying those words right now wasn't even sure of her own feelings yet.
"What is?"
"That... never mind."
She ducked her head and buried her face in my chest. I lifted a hand and gently stroked her hair. Without a word. That way she'd stew in it alone, growing more confused — so reason wouldn't have a chance to take root. So she'd think with her feelings, move with her feelings. So she'd throw herself at me without a second thought, like a flame that wanted to swallow everything.
...A sweet shampoo scent drifted to the tip of my nose.
Almost there.
The day I'd grab those soft breasts and pound her without mercy... wasn't far off.
After we got off the elevator, Min-ah asked me to wait, then called Ye-rim. They exchanged a few words, and then I heard the lock click open.
"Min! Come in!"
"Yeah!!"
"Did you come alone?"
She asked that, then poked her head out and looked left and right. Her eyes met mine where I was waiting by the elevator, and she immediately beamed and greeted me.
"Hello!"
"...Hey."
A fox, all right. A sly little fox who'd eaten more human livers than anyone could count. That sunny smile was the same as Min-ah's — for a second I wondered if I'd been wrong yesterday. But the sticky hunger that flashed through the instant her smiling eyes relaxed gave me my confirmation. The interloper in this hunt was this girl.
"Come on in, Min-ah! You come in too, Uncle! There's nobody else home!"
Blatant. As if to say she was alone at this hour, so I could drop by whenever I wanted. This was the kind of invitation you were supposed to decline. It was also the way to score points with Min-ah — and it left no room for misunderstanding.
"I'll wait here. Go on in."
I said that and gave Min-ah a warm smile, and she chirped a bright okay and went inside. Ye-rim watched her go with a chilly look in her eyes.
Ah. That was a mistake. This interloper's difficulty rating was looking like the high end of the scale. Min-ah's classmate and friend. First I needed to figure out just how close they actually were. If it was a casual friendship, I could just kick her aside. But if she was one of Min-ah's few best friends... that would be a genuine headache.
Anyway, I leaned against the wall and waited, wondering how to play this... unexpected. I'd figured it would take at least twenty minutes, but she came out almost immediately. Min-ah emerged with two shopping bags in each hand. I quickly stepped over and took them from her like I was snatching them away.
"I'll carry these. You all done?"
"Ah. Thank you! But..."
She smiled for a moment, then her expression turned slightly awkward. There was no reason this girl should be making a face like that right now. And then a flicker of unease shot through me. Don't tell me...?
"Ye-rim really wants to come over to our place today..."
A curse rose all the way to my throat, but I swallowed it and didn't let a trace of it show on my face. I did, however, let a slightly disappointed look settle on my features. It was fine to show Min-ah this kind of feeling right now.
"Ah..."
Reading my expression, she let a sliver of her own hidden feelings show. Meaning Min-ah didn't want the interloper coming in either. But the fact that she couldn't refuse...
Meant they were that close.
This might rank among the top ten most difficult hunts I'd ever run.
While Min-ah and I stood there facing each other in shared disappointment, Ye-rim came bursting out a beat later. Her smile stretched from ear to ear.
"Sorry! I'm not late, am I?"
"No. We barely waited."
She was having the time of her life. What the hell was I supposed to do about this. Getting Min-ah into bed today was pretty much off the table. At this rate, I might be the one who got eaten. Looking at the sly grin she flashed me, the gravity of the situation hit hard.
Whether she knew how I felt or not, Ye-rim stepped into the elevator and said,
My premonition played out without a single miss. She dragged Min-ah into the back seat, then proceeded to dominate the conversation, shattering every pocket of shared understanding that only Min-ah and I could have had.
This is driving me insane.
If she were just greedy and after me, she'd be easy to handle. I'd just reel the line in and let it out as needed. But Ye-rim... this girl had instincts that were anything but ordinary.
She even knows I'm trying to push her away.
And she still clung on like this. Not good. Not good at all. At the exact moment I needed to be focused on Min-ah... even right now, I was paying more attention to that girl than to Min-ah. Whether the attention was positive or negative, the fact that Ye-rim was monopolizing it was the biggest problem I had. If this kept up, I could lose my prey. I needed to get my head on straight.
"Come on in!"
Min-ah opened the door and welcomed Ye-rim inside. Judging by how naturally she walked in and sat on the sofa, she'd been over plenty of times before. The interloper found the remote like she owned the place and even turned on the TV.
"Min-ah, hurry up and get over here! This just started!"
"Uh, yeah."
Then she put some distance between herself and Min-ah, smiled sweetly, and called to me too.
"You come sit here too, Uncle!"
"Ah. Yes! Come over here... Uncle..."
Min-ah called to me a beat late, looking apologetic. This isn't your fault. It's that snake of a girl that's the problem.
I walked over at an unhurried pace and took my designated seat. Whew. The one silver lining was that this girl Ye-rim still hadn't figured out I was trying to make a move on Min-ah. If she had, she never would have put herself between us. Girls like her were usually sharp and sly, but they never had the generosity to share a man with another woman. That was the pattern.
On my right, Min-ah pressed in just a little. She was clearly watching the interloper, so it was barely a touch. On the left, by contrast, the little fox glued herself right up against me. She deliberately pressed her chest against my arm and rubbed. And at that sensation, I couldn't help but smile a little. And for good reason...
Fox. You've got a better head than Min-ah, but those tits aren't going to cut it.
From the feel of it, a small A-cup. She'd stuffed her bra to hide it, but she couldn't fool my sense of touch. Ah... I wanted to do Min-ah already. I wanted to grab those big, milky tits, shake them, suck on them. That teasing little sensation kept registering on my left, and it only made me hungrier. Tch.