―This morning at the Grand Hotel in Seoul, a commotion broke out as guests were urgently evacuated from the Final Hall. A riot squad was deployed and searched the main building for two hours. The assailant who released the tear gas was identified as an unemployed man...

Click. He switched off the radio sharply, irritated.

On the drive home, Lee Wooshin didn’t say a single word. The atmosphere inside the car was suffocatingly heavy, bristling with a sharp-edged silence that made it difficult to even speak.

Whether he hadn’t heard her proposal or simply couldn’t decide, Seoryeong couldn’t tell. She fidgeted with the blanket he’d thrown around her with a scowl on his face.

Once they got home, the man stormed into the guest room and slammed the door—bang!—and didn’t come back out.

“......”

The tightly shut door felt as unyielding as a fortress gate. Seoryeong couldn’t understand his refusal. She’d expected that if she asked to sleep together, he’d shamelessly start undressing. She hadn’t anticipated such a blunt rejection.

She went straight to the fridge and popped open a stray can of beer. Without pausing for breath, she drained the entire thing and immediately opened a second.

Beer trickled down from her lips, but she didn’t care. If she didn’t do something—anything—she didn’t think she could survive the night with her sanity intact.

Drinking quickly made the buzz hit faster. She chugged the second can like it was water—until, suddenly, a firm grip yanked her wrist downward. The beer spilled from her mouth, drenching her chin and chest.

“Stop drinking.”

Seoryeong violently shook off the warmth coiled around her wrist. Feeling wronged by his interference, she popped open a third can and glared at him. Lee Wooshin placed a hand on his hip like an instructor once more.

“Han Seoryeong.”

His voice dropped low, like a warning. For some reason, her mood turned sour, and she grabbed her coat from the floor. She summoned a taxi through an app and {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} stepped toward the door—only for a shadow to fall over her head.

“The sun’s already down. Where are you going?”

“It’s night, so I’m going out.”

“Why?”

His brows furrowed.

“Because I’ve been drinking, and I need someone.”

“......”

“Not someone uptight like you. Someone scummier.”

She ignored the rough sound of his breathing and slid her feet into her shoes.

Wooshin clenched a fist and quietly touched the frosted glass of the front door. His head hung low, his sigh somehow burdened.

“...I know today was hard, but don’t you think you should pull yourself together?”

“I’m trying.”

“This isn’t how—!”

He raised his voice, then pressed the bridge of his nose and let out a long breath.

“Every time you act like this, it shows how safely you’ve lived inside your little box. You’ve never met real bastards before, have you? You keep saying all this naive shit...”

“I have met one. And I got burned.”

“...!”

“Kim Hyeon. Name one bastard who treated me worse.”

Her voice, low and bitter, was sharp as a blade. A volatile urge flickered in her eyes—as if she were ready to do something reckless.

Seoryeong fluttered her lashes, trying to swallow her emotions. Arguing here would just be a waste of time.

But the moment she opened the door without hesitation, his hand shot out and locked the chain. His grip bit into her shoulder.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“...!”

When she turned, his shadowed face was tilted in a crooked grin.

“At this rate, we might as well settle this with Krav Maga.”

“......”

Krav Maga—hand-to-hand combat training used in their military drills. Survival-focused, brutal.

“You’ve got too much pent-up energy, so your mind’s going off the rails. Instructor Lee Wooshin can beat you breathless until those tangled thoughts are wiped clean.”

“......”

“So instead of going out drunk and looking for some guy, try straightening out your goddamn head first.”

“...I’m used to being trained by now.”

Her cheeks flushed from drink, Seoryeong sneered at the absurd suggestion.

“I just need a worse memory to overwrite this one. Like crying over my husband’s corpse, then screwing another bastard. Unless I go that far... I don’t think I’ll ever get rid of this corpse stench.”

“......”

“I get that you’re rejecting me in your usual way, so just let me go.”

Their gazes clashed midair, unflinching. She motioned to her shoulder, but his grip only tightened like a vice. Wooshin closed his eyes and spoke with eerie calm.

“Don’t make me into a worse man. Let go of the door.”

“If I do, will you give me what I want?”

“......”

Only silence followed. His Adam’s apple bobbed slowly, his eyes still shut in refusal. Seoryeong lifted her shoulder slightly.

“Fine. If you don’t want to, that’s it. I don’t force myself on people who don’t want me.”

“......”

“Then have a nice dream. Get some good rest.”

She unlocked the door and tossed out her bitter goodnight like it was nothing. Wooshin’s eyes twitched. He exhaled sharply—then suddenly removed his contact lens from one eye.

With every blink, the gray of his iris glinted and vanished. She paused, unsettled.

Then his voice, low and repressed, pierced her ears.

“I’m the one who wants Han Seoryeong to forget what happened today. If I could, I’d shamelessly hope this memory gets buried under something better.”

“......”

“But not like this. Not this way.” 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

His voice grew heavier with emotion.

“How could I... on a day like this... how could I touch you? Just how much more garbage do you want me to become?”

The way his cold city gaze twisted so suddenly—it hit something inside her.

Maybe because she’d shown him every last part of herself today. She couldn’t tell if the turmoil he showed was pity or something else. Seoryeong steadied herself, speaking past a flickering wave of shame.

“I don’t need a good man right now.”

“......”

“I never asked for tenderness. I want you to hurt me.”

She didn’t want anything soft or gentle. What she needed now was pain.

A new pain to counterbalance the trauma she’d suffered today. Something senseless, something brutal—anything to crush the part of her that still clung to Kim Hyeon’s memory.

Maybe it was the unwavering look in her eyes, but Wooshin dragged a rough hand over his face.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“...!”

At the same moment, he kicked her leg. Seoryeong’s knees buckled sharply beneath her. When she looked up, Wooshin was grinning down at her.

“Sex is painful by nature.”

He kindly corrected her misunderstanding.

When she opened her mouth to speak, the pressure in the air left her breathless. His twisted grin remained, and he began to speak slowly.

"Sweetness, my ass. It’s ripping through raw flesh from the start—that’s what fucking is."

Lee Wooshin grabbed her hand and began undoing his belt buckle. When Seoryeong instinctively curled her fingers and fumbled away—smack!—a sharp sting spread across the back of her hand. Seoryeong was left dazed.

"Quit running your mouth with that childish crap. It’s pulling on the back of my neck."

“...Wait, just—”

"Maybe your husband half-assed the fucking, too busy playing house."

Suddenly, he grabbed the back of her head and shoved her face between his legs. The still-fastened buckle and cold zipper scraped across her tender lips. Her nose was dragged and rubbed against the stiff fabric, soaked and dried again by sweat. When he yanked down his black briefs, a blunt, thick mass of flesh sprang out.

"Tell me. Is this what you wanted?"

"......!"

His now ominous voice growled low, and the stench of flesh grew stronger—sharp and iron-laced. The hairless skin was smooth, but the brazenly inked tattoos scrawled across it were grotesque in a different sense. She shut her eyes tight.

There wasn’t even time to process what she was seeing. She’d braced herself for something like this, but once it was happening, her mind went completely blank.

"Open wider."

“Mmgh...!”

She struggled, but the grip on her head never loosened. Left with no choice, she parted her lips, and the sharp musk of flesh pushed into her lungs. Salty, rank, unmistakably male—just the scent alone made her stomach churn. Yet it was this discomfort, this revulsion, that she may have been craving all along.

"Take it all in. Swallow it down. Before I ram it in."

The swollen tip dragged across her palate. The hot, hard flesh against her mouth made her tongue flinch. Even though he wasn’t fully erect, the pulsing veins stood out grotesquely—her tongue could feel every one of them.

Seoryeong forced her mouth wider, as if enduring a ritual of penance. As she awkwardly swiped her tongue along the weighty shaft, the thick length suddenly pushed in deep, plunging to the back of her throat in one motion. The foul, suffocating smell filled her mouth.

"...What a sight."

At that moment, a voice—clenched and furious—slipped out between his teeth. The words weren’t aimed at anyone in particular.

At the same time, his erection quickly wilted. Was it me? Or was it something wrong with him? Seoryeong flicked her gaze upward without moving.

“――.”

Lee Wooshin had his head tilted back, one arm covering his eyes. His fist was clenched so tightly that the bones stood out stark white.

There was something wretched about the sight.

Strangely, unbearably so.