The morning after a storm had swept through the weekend.
Damp, ashen sunlight seeped through the gaps of the narrow, humid studio apartment window.
Harin opened her heavy eyes on the old bed. It felt as though the sound of fierce rain still lingered in her ears. No. More precisely, it was that surreal silence inside the massive black sedan last night, where the rain had been perfectly shut out, still clinging to her eardrums.
She unconsciously looked down at her right wrist.
The spot where Bak Minhyeok had roughly gripped her last night. The sensation of the man’s large, burning palm remained as vivid as a burn mark, subtly constricting her skin.
The soft texture of the luxury leather seats. The man’s sensual, expensive scent that had filled the narrow, enclosed car. And that cold, arrogant command to come up to his office Monday night.
“Hah.”
Harin rubbed her face dry with both hands, exhaling a strange sigh. To forcibly erase the dangerous, dizzying afterimages tearing through her mind, she shook her head violently.
Just then, the smartphone beside her pillow vibrated briefly.
[Harim. Oppa just got on the high-speed train. I’ll arrive at the station in two hours, so can you come pick me up in front of the station?]
It was a message from Gim Junho, her longtime lover, coming up from the city at the southern tip.
The Harin of the past would have cheered and run to the mirror upon seeing this message. But the first emotion to bloom in Harin’s heart now was not excitement, but an inexplicable, strange weariness.
When she had been wailing in despair, alone in that hellish office last night, this man had been most thoroughly absent. And now, on this peaceful weekend morning where everything had been perfectly settled by the immense power of the Director, he had sent a bright message as if nothing had happened.
Harin bit her lip and sent a dry reply.
[Yeah, oppa. Come safely. I’ll head out.]
Two hours later. The crowded, noisy station concourse.
She spotted Junho emerging from the ticket gates amidst the throngs of people. Perhaps because he had suffered through unfamiliar work in another city and oppressive company dinners all week, Junho’s shoulders were slumped, and thick shadows of fatigue clung heavily to his face.
“Harim.”
Junho forced a smile and approached Harin. Harin also put on a delighted expression and embraced him.
“Oppa. You worked hard this week too. Tired?”
A tender greeting. But the moment she entered Junho’s arms, what brushed Harin’s nose was a crude mixture of sweat-drenched shirt odor and cheap fabric softener.
What struck Harin’s mind with violent force was the heavy, luxurious body scent of Minhyeok she had smelled inside the enclosed sedan last night. That perfect male fragrance that paralyzed her mind with every breath.
Harin unconsciously held her breath and stepped half a pace back from Junho’s embrace.
“Oppa. You must be hungry. Let’s go eat first.”
Harin avoided Junho’s gaze and took the lead. The place they headed to was a common, noisy franchise restaurant near the station. Amidst greasy tables and raucous noise, Junho shoved stew into his mouth and began pouring out complaints.
“Harim. I really thought I was going crazy this week. That manager bastard forced drinks on us until Friday night. I’m struggling with rent and food costs because I’m living in another city. Honestly, bearing the high-speed train ticket costs every weekend is too much now.”
The most squalid, pathetic face of reality.
It was the whining of a younger man begging for his struggles to be acknowledged, but Harin’s expression went cold.
She too had barely survived after suffering crazily from her superior’s tyranny last night. But Junho didn’t ask how Harin was or wonder about her week. He was like a helpless child who only wanted to voice his own hardships and be comforted.
The arrogant, cold dagger Minhyeok had thrown at her ear last night stabbed into her once more.
Distance makes responsibility fade, doesn’t it? If it were me, I would have run here even if the sky split in two.
Minhyeok didn’t complain. He didn’t make excuses. He simply opened his wallet and wielded his power, removing every obstacle before Harin’s eyes in a single second. That was the ability of a true male, and the way to protect a woman.
Her older boyfriend, whining about a few pennies of transportation costs before her.
Harin looked at Junho’s clumsy, stubby fingers holding his spoon and barely suppressed the strange disgust boiling within.
“Oppa. Stop talking about work while we eat. I have a headache too.”
At Harin’s cold reaction, Junho awkwardly closed his mouth. The restaurant air pressed down suffocatingly.
The moment they closed the studio door after the meal, Junho couldn’t hold back anymore. His bag was thrown onto the entryway floor with a thud, and he immediately wrapped his arms around Harin from behind.
The force pulling her waist tight made Harin’s body sway slightly. It was a desperate, urgent embrace conveying the young male vigor he had suppressed all week.
“Harim… I really felt like I was going crazy. Every single day, I only thought of you.”
His voice came out cracked, his breath already hot. His clumsy palm roughly grasped Harin’s thin blouse, undoing the buttons as if tearing them off.
With a screeching sound, the fabric was pulled as if it would tear. His lips attacked her nape, sucking hard, and his teeth grazed her skin, leaving marks. All of those movements were too fast. Too hurried.
Harin stood still. Even as Junho’s hands dug into her chest and clumsily pulled down her bra straps, her skin remained coldly numb.
That suffocating tension felt in the back seat of the black sedan last night, the expensive perfume seeping into her skin, the fatal trembling that made her body shake on its own beneath those cold eyes… not a single trace of it existed in this moment.
“Oppa… ah, wait…”
Harin tried to push him away slightly, but Junho had already lost his reason. He pushed Harin onto the narrow single bed.
The creaking spring sound echoed through the room. A heavy body crashed down on top of Harin. The feeling of weight crushing her bones. Her breath caught.
“Hah… Harim… I love you…”
Junho’s hand roughly rolled up Harin’s skirt, trying to pull her panties down in one go. His handiwork was clumsy and impatient.
The sound of a zipper lowering, pants sliding down to his thighs. Soon, his hardened member roughly stabbed into Harin’s entrance. Unprepared.
“Uht…! It hurts…”
Harin moaned lowly, but Junho didn’t stop. Rather, he thrust his hips harder. With a slick friction sound, the hot mass forced its way in. The narrow passage tightened as if it would tear.
Junho panted and began moving his hips back and forth. Quickly. Shallowly. He would go deep then pull right out, then thrust again. Without rhythm, a beastly pounding merely trying to satisfy himself instinctively.
Harin squeezed her eyes shut. And imagined.
A perfectly tailored black suit under dim lighting.
Sharp eyes looking down coldly.
A low, oppressive voice brushing her nape.
“Don’t move.”
The moment her entire body froze at those words.
Bak Minhyeok’s long fingers lifting her chin, the painfully slow tempo at which he had removed her clothes, slowly, so slowly. Driving her to the brink of climax yet deliberately stopping, making her beg—a cruel composure.
“Ha-ang…! Ung… more…!”
The sound bursting from Harin’s mouth suddenly changed.
A sticky, wet moan she rarely let out. Her hips rose on their own.
Junho mistook that reaction entirely as his own doing.
“Harim… you’re this wet because of me? Only I can make you like this, right?”
He shook his hips harder, faster. Sweat dripped down. His breathing became beastly rough.
But Harin’s mind was in a completely different place. She desperately wished that the man pressing down on her from above now was not Junho, but Bak Minhyeok.
She imagined Minhyeok’s cold hand choking her neck, whispering in her ear, “Show me how filthy you’ve become.”
Just from that imagination, her insides clamped down madly. Hot liquid trailed down her inner thighs. A deep, filthy pleasure climbed up Harin’s spine that the shallow, hurried stimulation Junho gave could never reach.
“Aaht…! Harder… please…!”
Harin cried out without realizing it.
Hearing those words, Junho squeezed out his last strength and thrust forcefully a few more times.
“Hah…! I’m… I’m coming…!”
After a few short, violent thrusts, Junho groaned lowly and ejaculated. Hot fluid spilled onto Harin’s stomach. And soon all movement stopped.
Junho gasped for breath and collapsed on top of Harin’s body like he was crumbling.
Within seconds, his breathing became regular. Fatigue washed over him, and he turned his back and began to snore.
He had made such a fuss about starving for a week, yet the act ended in mere minutes. And he turned his back again.
Harin lay with her legs still spread, blankly staring at the ceiling. Below, hot liquid was still slowly seeping out.
But it wasn’t Junho’s. It was the trace of a terrible desire she had created herself. Her body was filled, but her soul was empty. No, rather, it felt like a hole had been carved even deeper.
The answer had already been coldly decided in the deepest part of Harin’s heart.
Harin silently rose and picked up her smartphone that had fallen to the floor. She turned on the screen and opened the calendar app.
The day after tomorrow was Monday.
[Manager Gim. After work, come up to my room separately. Employee Seo Harin.]
That arrogant man’s command, etched into her mind, struck Harin’s eardrums like a heartbeat.
Harin looked down at her longtime lover sleeping soundly with cold eyes. And she silently recorded a secret, red schedule in the Monday evening timeslot of the calendar.
The countdown to irreversible corruption had already perfectly begun.