Episode 6 - I'm Going to Sleep with You Once and Throw You Away
It was an insult. Taehun's offer to do anything for her felt to Jian like a definitive declaration that she couldn’t do it on her own, that she wouldn’t be able to do it.
Ever since coming to Korea, she had constantly been chasing achievements. She had to show something, anything, through her next paper to those who now said she was finished. But the moment she heard Taehun's words—whom she had thought was her only ally—her anxious heart plummeted into the abyss.
Jian sat motionless in her seat until dusk settled. She was suffocatingly afraid that Taehun’s words might be true, that her career might really end here.
The sound of her phone vibrating shook her falling consciousness awake. She reached out and picked up her phone.
"Hello."
"Why aren't you coming?"
Her younger brother Jihun's irritable voice came through the receiver.
"Sorry. I'll leave right now."
"You haven't even left yet? You should have left an hour ago. You only come once a week, and you can't even be on time?"
"Something came up."
"If you're going to be like this, don't come anymore. Dad and I couldn't even sleep waiting for you, what the hell?"
The call cut off before she could answer. Jian let out a long sigh and put on her coat. The winter wind was beating loudly against the window.
Earlier this year, her father had fallen and broken his hip. When the diagnosis came that he might never walk on his own feet again, the despair he felt was more dangerous than expected. He screamed and threw things every day, to the point that no caregivers lasted.
In the end, the burden fell entirely on Jian and Jihun. Jihun took a leave of absence from graduate school to provide care, and Jian gave up her life in America to return to Korea.
"Now that you're back, I should return to school next semester."
Those were the first words Jihun had spat out when she returned to Korea.
But she drew a firm line. She declared that visiting once a week and covering the rehabilitation hospital costs of over two million won a month, plus some living expenses, was the most she could do.
"How can you be so selfish as the eldest daughter? Your one and only brother wants to study, and you can't even accommodate that?"
Her father bulged the veins in his neck, but she didn't bat an eye.
"If you're so worried about Jihun, hire a caregiver. And the child who received more from Father should have more obligation."
Since their mother died sixteen years ago, her father—who had raised the siblings alone—was a man with special affection for his son. All the benefits went to her five-years-younger brother, and Jian hadn't properly received allowance since high school.
Nevertheless, she couldn't understand that way of thinking that demanded more duty and sacrifice from the daughter.
She drove about forty minutes and arrived at the hospital. When she opened the hospital room door, Jihun, who had been looking at his phone beside their sleeping father, walked out with his face deeply furrowed.
"He just fell asleep. You need to be quiet."
"How is he?"
"Do you even care? If so, why can't you keep your promises?"
"I said I'm sorry. I'll pay attention from now on."
"You really live comfortably all by yourself. Doing whatever you want, avoiding whatever you don't…."
Jihun was always sharp-tongued, but today the intensity was worse. Jian spoke, suppressing the indignation threatening to burst out.
"Stop it. Since Father is sleeping, I'll just see his face and leave today."
As she tried to enter the room, Jihun grabbed her arm.
"And you call that proper? Just seeing his face and leaving?"
"Then what more should I do?"
"You should say you'll take full charge of Dad's care during the break at least. Don't you have any concept of sacrifice for family in your head?"
"Wrapping up my life in America, paying the hospital bills and living expenses—aren't those sacrifices?"
"But you're doing all the research you want in Korea. Your salary is over seventy million won, so paying the hospital bills won't affect your living, and everyone flatters you by calling you professor—what's so hard or uncomfortable for you?"
Finally, Jian's face contorted greatly.
"I went through college entirely on scholarships, and when I studied abroad, I covered tuition and living expenses with school money. My family never sacrificed anything for me, so why do I alone have to sacrifice for the family?"
"It's not about receiving anything—it's a duty you naturally have as family. Can't you see I'm stuck here unable to attend graduate school?"
Jian violently shook off Jihun's hand.
"You received all the benefits, so why should our duties be the same? When I took online lectures, you got private tutoring. When I worked part-time, you went on overseas trips. When I walked because I couldn't afford bus fare, you took taxis. Since you've lived comfortably off Father's money all this time, make up for it with your body at least."
"Did Dad do that on purpose? He didn't have enough money for both of us, that's all."
At Jihun's annoyed words, Jian let out a hollow laugh.
"You know better than anyone how absurd that sounds."
"........"
"Let's stop. If we talk more, we'll end up fighting in the hospital."
As Jian turned and walked away, Jihun's voice followed her from behind.
"Yeah, live your whole life alone like that, without family or friends. Let's see how well you do living so selfishly!"
His voice echoed down the quiet corridor. Jian clenched her fist tightly and left the hospital.
* * *
She had nowhere to go. Having devoted herself solely to studying, she hadn't made a single proper friend, and on a day like this, there wasn't anyone who readily came to mind.
To piece together her shattered heart, she found herself in the alley where she had met Jaehui a few days ago. The fact that the only comfort in her life had been that single night was so absurd that she was on the verge of laughter.
She parked in a nearby lot and stopped at a convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes. She thought that inhaling the unpleasant smoke and coughing it out might ease her chest a little.
But the moment she entered the alley and sat on the outdoor unit, she realized she didn't have a lighter.
"Ah... I'm going crazy."
Clutching the crumpled cigarette pack, she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. She desperately needed something to make her forget the suffocating reality.
"Have you ever kissed a man you didn't know?"
When she recalled Jaehui's lips moving sensually, the sensation inside her mouth revived as well. He was quite skilled at kissing. Teasing his partner at the edge of the lips until they grew desperate, then invading inside as if to devour—it was thrilling, like reaching climax.
His hand that occasionally gripped her hair, his breath that seemed hot and impatient—he knew perfectly well what excited a woman.
"If he's not a player, is he just born with it?"
As she was muttering to herself, an unexpected voice came from beside her.
"Who?"
Jian flinched in surprise and opened her eyes. It was more than a little bewildering to suddenly face the person she had just been kissing in her imagination.
"Y-you, why are you here?"
Her ears and the nape of her neck flushed red enough to be visible even in the darkness. His quiet eyes slowly swept over her ears and neck.
"What were you thinking about to turn your ears and neck red?"
"........"
When Jian said nothing, he reached out and gently lifted her chin.
"You were thinking about me?"
Before his piercing gaze, Jian obediently opened her mouth.
"...Yeah."
"Dirty thoughts?"
"...Yeah."
His face as he smirked was captivating. Unlike last time when he had been slightly disheveled, he was now fully dressed in a suit and tie, exuding the aura of a grown man. His neat attire only made her more curious about what lay beneath his shirt.
"Why are you holding a cigarette like that?"
"...I forgot to buy a lighter."
He laughed softly.
"Silly."
"If you have a lighter, lend it to me."
"I don't."
"Why?"
"I quit."
"Suddenly?"
Jaehui shrugged his shoulders.
"Someone said they didn't like it...."
She almost asked who, but closed her mouth. That question fell into the private territory they had agreed not to broach.
The next moment, she felt breath on her nape. He brought his face close and inhaled, as if checking something. As she flusteredly tried to press her body against the wall, he whispered a question.
"Have you been drinking?"
"No."
"But why do you seem strangely disheveled?"
From him, now close enough that she could feel his breath, came the scent of trees on a rainy day. Just having his face this close made breathing difficult.
"Are you doing this on purpose?"
"Doing what?"
"Making me fall for you?"
Jaehui looked down at her and smiled slightly.
"Why so sudden... From the first time I met you, my only goal has been exactly that one thing."
Her suffocating, stifling feelings were gradually blurring before impulsive desire. Jian wanted to surrender herself to that impulse. She thought that if she let herself be consumed by pleasure until her mind went blank, she might create even a small hole to breathe through.
"Then will you sleep with me today?"
"........"
"I'm not asking to date. I can't do relationships. I don't have the circumstances or the mind for it. But I want to sleep with you."
"Why? Because you want to relieve your frustration?"
"Yeah. If you feel like you're being used and don't like it, you can refuse."
He fell silent once more. Jian looked straight into his eyes and uttered words clearly intended as seduction.
"I've thought about sleeping with you every day."
He burst into a light laugh.
"That's so sexy."
"What about you? Haven't you thought about sleeping with me?"
"........"
"Tell me."
The man's large hand wrapped around her neck.
"I'm thinking about it right now. Imagining stripping your clothes off here and recklessly pushing into you."
"Then why are you hesitating?"
He pulled her head toward him, drawing close enough that their noses touched.
"Who's hesitating?"
Her head tilted and their lips pressed together deeply. As if previewing what would happen shortly, he delicately and persistently explored her inner flesh. Hiding fierce desire behind soft sensations, he strangely rubbed and sucked in his hot breath.
As his large hand pulled her body forward, her curves were roughly crushed against his firm muscles. Mucous membranes rubbed together, his smooth tongue passed through the center. Each time thick flesh pressed inside, their joined hearts pounded, thump thump.
Jian gasped for breath, swallowing moans and saliva. Her inner muscles twitched in time with the explicit movements of his tongue inside her mouth.
"Haah...."
Jian, who had been one-sidedly swept away, forcefully created distance between them and exhaled. In the darkness, she could see his lips glistening with saliva.
"I'm going to sleep with you once and throw you away. I won't ask for your phone number, I won't ask what you do. Of course, I won't tell you anything about myself either... Is that still okay?"
His dark pupils stared at her as if they would devour her.
"I'll handle getting hurt and struggling after being discarded, so you just do whatever you want."
For the first time, his hand delving beneath her clothes was unbearably hot.