274. Scandal (1)

While they were making love to a degree that was uncomfortable to watch, I was swimming alone in illusions.

I wasn’t fully asleep, but rather floundering on the edge of consciousness and subconsciousness, gasping for breath.

As I finally snapped to my senses and opened my eyes, my unnie and brother-in-law had vanished from the bed, and were now splashing around in the bathroom.

I neither wanted to, nor could I, get involved in that sticky situation, so I stumbled to my feet, pulled on the clothes I’d discarded, quenched my dry throat, and headed back upstairs.

He remained shut away in the bathroom while I got ready to leave, not sparing me a single glance, but…

…the traces of him left inside my body remained, clinging stickily.

Back in my own home, I tossed my sweat-cooled body into the bathtub and began filling it with warm water, just like downstairs.

The warm water, which had been lapping at my skin, gradually rose to my ankles, then soon submerged my thighs.

As the water submerged me from my narrow waist up to my ribs, I turned off the tap and leaned over, soaking my pristine white choker in the hot water.

As I gave the now slightly darker, wet choker a few little tugs, strange sounds kept echoing in the quiet bathroom.

-Haa…, Eung…

…Mixing bodies intimately.

…Moaning lewdly.

Pang, pang, skin slapping together then parting.

The sound of whispered love.

Not like the auditory hallucinations I heard when lying in bed.

The sounds of lovers, heard so clearly.

These were sounds I normally hated hearing, so in the past, I would have covered my ears, but…

Now, I didn’t particularly feel like it, nor did I want to.

-Juhyeok-ah…, Heh, Chyuup…

The sound of unnie whispering sweet nothings was, funnily enough, incredibly coquettish.

She’d never shown it to me, of course, and as far as I remembered, she’d never acted cute even once towards Dad – she was such a cold person, but…

And here she was, dedicating her everything sincerely to the man who raped her, acting all cute and coy in a naive voice.

As absurd and laughable as it was…

…I was a little envious.

…That unnie could live like that.

“…….”

Leaning my body a little further, I submerged my ears, now cooled unlike before, into the water’s surface.

Now, blocking my eardrums with the warm water instead of my fingers or blankets, I closed my eyes within the now silent bathtub.

…Me too.

Will I be able to live like unnie someday?

Without caring about the public’s gaze.

As a free person, unbound by anything, contracts or otherwise.

Will I truly be able to live as I please?

If I were to live like that someday…

Will I still be obsessed with him then?

I couldn’t know.

Because I couldn’t know anything just by imagining.

Unless I experienced it myself.

**

A few days passed after that.

Seo Jia, who had suddenly vanished that day, began contacting me daily starting the very next day.

Without any text or voice,

Just one picture at a time.

Wearing the clothes I’d packed into her suitcase over and over, she’d send me pictures of her expressionless reflection in the mirror.

The picture hasn’t arrived yet today, but I’m sure another one will come flying in this evening.

I didn’t need to think about what it meant.

Because no matter the reason, her goal of seducing me wouldn’t change.

But no matter how obsessed she was with me, there was a reason I couldn’t meet her.

-Starlet A from renowned girl group tests positive for drugs in preliminary screening… Activities disrupted.

The article broke, and reporters swarmed my house.

Maybe someone had zoomed in with a camera from the upstairs window.

The curtains might be drawn, but a desperate reporter looking for a story could probably find a way past security and barge right up to my doorstep.

Of course, the Starlet A mentioned in the article wasn’t Seo Jia, but one of her groupmates, making it a stray bullet, but…

That didn’t really matter to reporters or the public.

After all, she was the popular one,

And similarly popular Hinami’s place would be swarming with the same kind of people.

-I can’t go outside.

As if following a script, articles featuring photos of Hinami smoking an e-cigarette-who knows when they were even taken-suddenly began pouring out.

Of course, I knew she’d quit vaping, but the public didn’t seem to think so.

Seeing her smoke an e-cigarette, they probably assumed she smoked other things too.

If she smoked, she must have dabbled in other smoky things.

Come to think of it, they were together all day in Japan last time, maybe the two of them…?

It was a ridiculous train of thought, but hey, if it’s entertaining, nobody seemed inclined to hold back.

Regardless, it was true that someone in a girl group had failed a drug test.

And there happened to be only one famous girl group lying low like a ghost.

I figured it would be better to quickly cut ties with the caught party and issue a statement, but it seemed complicated by internal circumstances I wasn’t privy to, so it wasn’t that simple.

-Don’t open the blinds if you can help it, and take your vitamins.

-Okay.

Just like the two women involuntarily confined to their homes, I wasn’t exactly comfortable going out either.

The fact that Haeun and I live downstairs from Seo Jia’s place is known to some, but unknown to others.

Haeun didn’t really need to go out, but I was someone who had to, even for work.

Reporters approaching me, perhaps making wild guesses about whether I was involved, were becoming more than just a few.

…There was even one time while grocery shopping with Haeun when a lunatic openly tailed us, and I barely stopped myself from unleashing a torrent of curses right to his face.

“B-Boss. I’m going to head home now…”

“Ah, okay.”

“Then… Ah, Madam…”

As things got this bad, my mental state wasn’t stable enough to be polite and gentle, even with our part-timer.

In a place where anyone could find fault with me at any moment, pretending to be unfazed wasn’t something an ordinary person could pull off.

There was only one person who could do that.

“Ah, Joo-hyuk-ah!”

“…You’re here?”

“Yeah. Give me a hug.”

…Haeun.

A person who no longer cared about anyone else’s gaze.

Unlike me, Haeun had no particular reason to be here, yet she consistently visited while I worked and openly flaunted our relationship.

Each time, wearing outfits that were modest but revealed her figure starkly.

As soon as she made eye contact with me, she’d beam, run over to my side,

Hug me so tightly her chest pressed against me, then link arms and deliberately rub her side against mine.

Not for me, but for herself.

As if to show off to the men whose eyes instinctively turned towards her when she appeared.

“Ehehe…. Still got some time before you get off work, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll work out too. Let’s go home together when you’re done.”

Changing into the clothes she wore when we first reunited.

She’d tie her long hair back into a ponytail, bouncing it as she worked up a sweat, and when it was time for me to leave, she’d stick to me, still drenched in sweat.

Claiming she was embarrassed by her sweaty smell, she’d refuse to shower here,

And somehow talk me out of showering too, leaving the expensive tea I bought untouched, walking for ages before heading home, only to drag me into the bathtub every time.

Each time, the gazes of people watching us sent a thrill through me, but…

…Thinking that reporters looking for prey might be among those gazes…

…I couldn’t accept it as easily as I used to.

“……”

“…What.”

“Ah, n-no. It’s nothing. It just… seems like Madam really likes you, Boss…”

That’s why I sometimes took my anger out on the innocent part-timer.

…Honestly, even all the reporters in the world combined wouldn’t know more about me than she does.

To be honest, it was a little scary.

If you think about what happened that day with her, and assume Seo Jia and I were high on drugs, it sounds plausible, doesn’t it?

But our part-timer just stared intently with trembling pupils, her gaze full of meaning, unsure if I was scary or disgusting.

If I just asked directly, she would have answered ‘no’.

“It could happen. Whatever. Ha… If you get a boyfriend, you’ll probably become like that too.”

“Y-yes? Me? Am I?”

“…Just fucking say it. Tell me why someone like Haeun likes a guy who’s juggling multiple partners.”

“No, uh, e-eh…”

So, in a fit of pique, I confronted her, and Soo-ah, who was getting ready to leave, gave a strange reaction and fumbled her words.

It was funny to think that she, older than Hinami, was so naive, but…

Remembering the madness she showed that day made me suspect she was just pretending to be innocent, so I couldn’t easily let my guard down.

…If she gets caught by a reporter and slips up, this won’t end as a joke, fucking hell.

It’s none of my business if Seo Jia and Hinami’s groupmate, whom I barely know, get busted for drugs and thrown in jail, but it’s unacceptable for those two to face scandal and ruin.

“And, uh… the article was about someone else, so stop looking at me like I’m a junkie, okay?”

“Eh, uh, no, I-I wasn’t…”

“…If not, then fine. Go home.”

After unloading all my pent-up stress onto the poor part-timer, who was cursed with being too good at deduction, I felt a little relieved.

…I really am a piece of shit, aren’t I?

If you think about it, I only owe her, so what the hell am I doing to my close senior’s niece?

As I felt a mix of self-loathing and relief…

“Th-that’s not it. I…”

“What is it?”

“…I heard something on the internet.”

The pitiful Hwang Soo-ah, having just been my scapegoat, approached me with trembling hands, thrust her phone towards me, and whispered cautiously.

“…You, Jia, and Hinami. In Japan.”

“What?”

“Ah, actually, your name wasn’t mentioned, but someone spread some kind of conspiracy theory on Twitter saying that the two of them met a man…”

…So heavy.

A terrifying bomb.