Chapter 5: A little bit clever(1)

Whoosh.

Warm water pours down from the shower.

It hits my soft skin and falls straight onto the tile floor.

“Eh. Eh. Heh.”

A crazy laugh escapes my mouth.

Before I know it, the sound of the water dripping is covered by the sound of laughter, filling the shower room.

I’m not laughing because I like it.

It’s not funny or particularly exciting.

I just feel like I’m going crazy if I don’t laugh like this.

“Heh heh… heh… heh… heh…”

The laughter gradually changes into something I can’t tell if it’s a sob or something else.

My emotional state changes accordingly.

Maybe it’s because it’s a motel.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a full-length mirror in a shower room.

Maybe there are a lot of people coming here to do that kind of thing…

They’re there to check their bodies before they do it…

Thinking about that makes my face hot and red.

It’s because I can see myself reflected in the full-length mirror.

My body is toned because I exercise regularly.

But my chest and the nape of my neck.

Red handprints here and there.

And swollen marks that looked like bug bites.

They were all marks left by that guy Yoon Ji-bin.

“Eww! Why did you do that! Why did you do that! You crazy b*tch! What on earth were you thinking?”

The sobs turned into screams mixed with screams.

The pitch that I had just raised when I screamed was really high.

If I could have made this much noise normally, it wouldn’t have taken 5 hours to record the cover song last time.

I tried to escape reality for a moment while thinking that.

“…Ugh. It hurts.”

Muscle pain all over my body.

And the foreign body sensation and slight pain in my stomach.

That made me realize the situation I was in.

As if I couldn’t escape.

“…Is it okay for an idol to be like this… Seriously…”

Na Yu-ah.

23 years old.

Occupation: idol, but that’s a lie, a virtual streamer under Starlight.

If I were to summarize my profile, it would be as follows.

If you ask me how I ended up with such a minor job as a YouTuber at such a young age, the internet broadcasts I had been watching since high school played a big role.

As the saying goes, the more you watch, the more you want to do it.

After my close childhood friend went to the military in college, I had nothing else to do, so I was wandering around Newtube and came across an announcement.

[Starlight 3rd Generation Recruitment Announcement. This time, it’s your turn to become a shining star!]

Honestly, I didn’t think it was that serious at first.

… I just thought, “I’m bored, so why don’t I give it a try?”

That’s about it.

I thought it was unlikely to work out in the first place.

I’ve never learned to sing, but I’m pretty good at it, and I’ve never heard anyone say that I can’t play games.

I’ve been watching internet broadcasts for a long time, so I had a high level of understanding.

However, I had no experience actually broadcasting, and I thought there were many people with talent like me.

In fact, there were many people who wanted to be YouTubers.

It’s a subculture, but it’s quite major among them.

You could say it’s the most major of the minors.

…So I went into the interview comfortably, thinking, “If it doesn’t work out, then don’t do it.”

“Ms. Na Yu-ah, you passed. You’ll probably start your trainee life in about 1-2 weeks, so coordinate your schedule well.”

I got in with incredible ease.

Starlight is one of the largest virtual YouTuber groups in Korea, aside from its native Japan.

So it was definitely not an easy place.

It was like a college student with no qualifications getting a job at Samsung Electronics by luck.

Since I got in there, I couldn’t say no.

I had already been given more opportunities than I deserved.

So after a year of being a trainee, I debuted, and have been doing pretty well as a virtual YouTuber until now…

“Why do you insist on adding a title like s*x offender to that… Are you an idiot?”

I remember that there was a fun test called the Criminal Test on TV before.

The result came out as a sexual criminal with strong sexual desire.

… At that time, I laughed it off because it was a succubus… but who would have thought that it would become real…

“You’ve been holding it in well all this time… but why couldn’t you hold it in this time… you should’ve held it in… ahh.”

Yoon Ji-bin.

My childhood friend.

A handsome face that anyone can see, but a moderate height.

A slim body with a face as gentle as a retriever.

A guy with a natural DNA that even has a gentle voice.

There’s no way a woman who likes a soft and gentle man would dislike him.

He was actually popular.

The problem is that I also like this popular guy.

And it’s unrequited love.

It’s a heavy unrequited love that’s easily lasted a year or two, and it’s 8 years long.

Who would believe it…

It’s a story that could come out of a movie…

If I wrote a novel like this, I might get criticized.

Even I don’t know why I still can’t let go of Yoon Ji-bin.

Anyway, that’s not important.

Usually, no matter how much you like someone, unrequited love ends quickly.

There was a reason why my unrequited love lasted this long.

“Because I’ve already been rejected once…”

A long time ago, in middle school.

I confessed to Yoon Ji-bin and got rejected.

Even now, he didn’t like my type.

A type that was childish, small-breasted, and not pure.

Ji-bin’s taste was always the same.

A girl like Lee Chung-ha, who I broke up with a while ago.

Lee Chung-ha was actually a crazy woman, but if you look at her appearance, she fit Ji-bin’s taste perfectly.

She was neat, clean, and elegant.

The problem was that I should have given up if I had been rejected, but I couldn’t give up….

It’s been 8 years already.

I had to hide the fact that I liked him when she was by my side, so I pretended to completely give up.

Even though I couldn’t give up at all.

But they say holding back is poison.

My desires built up inside me and exploded in this bad way.

This is how I seduced Ji-bin, who was weak after being dumped by his girlfriend.

“But…but…if you make such a pitiful expression…”

I still remember Ji-bin’s face at the drinking party yesterday.

A face that looked empty and like he had lost everything.

An expression that seemed to blame himself, yet had a decadent beauty that was hurt.

As a woman who liked a man, I couldn’t stand it at all.

The sympathy, maternal love, and protective desire boiling inside me were all mixed together.

The feeling of wanting to comfort him had unknowingly turned into physical comfort.

“I think they call this grooming…”

I remember hearing it on the news or something.

It was usually a crime committed with weak children, but what I did was no different.

Ji-bin was not my type of man at all.

This was just a result of drinking and seducing him when he was weak-hearted.

I felt a surge of guilt.

And to do this to a friend I’d known for 10 years…

Hehe… “You should have kept the line even when seducing him… You idiot…”

But I guess I could get away with kissing him on the lips.

I couldn’t turn back after we’d already spent the night together.

I was wondering why I brought him to a motel.

“Ughhhhh… What should I do… How will Ji-bin see my face now…”

I just wanted to collapse on the floor.

Should I apologize?

No, would he even accept my apology?

What if he said he was disappointed in me because of this and couldn’t be my friend anymore?

My head was filled with all sorts of fantasies.

“No… But he’ll accept my apology… Yeah… It’s okay… Yu-ah.”

I held back my sinking mood and forced myself to cheer up.

Still, Ji-bin was somewhat responsible.

At least he didn’t reject me.

And I was drunk, not just him.

… Still, since I was weak-minded, wouldn’t Ji-bin be lenient?

At least I didn’t intentionally try to seduce him.

I consoled myself like that and turned off the shower.

My thoughts went on and on, and my shower took too long.

Today was Thursday, so I had to go home and turn on the broadcast.

Aside from that, I had other piling up work to do.

I couldn’t stay depressed and damp forever.

I roughly dried myself with a towel and walked out wearing a robe.

There was no one there anyway, but I felt awkward walking around naked.

I was also a little embarrassed.

I picked up the underwear and clothes scattered on the floor and grabbed my phone from the shelf.

“…Hmm. Did I turn my phone off?”

I don’t remember well because I drank a lot.

The screen didn’t light up when I touched it.

It seemed like my phone was off.

It definitely wasn’t that the battery was dead.

I had fully charged it before going out to drink.

I turned it on just in case I got a work call.

It vibrates softly, the screen brightens, and soon the light comes on.

[2 missed calls]

The notification on the turned-on screen had a picture of a phone drawn on it.

…I’ve seen this number somewhere.

The number felt familiar, so I unlocked it and started calling.

After a few rings, a man answered the phone.

“Hello?”

[Yes. Are you Rikyuel?]

“Oh, yes. That’s right. Is there something…?”

He seemed to be someone from the company.

Starlight tried not to call the names of her affiliated streamers, whether they were her employees, the CEO, or her colleagues, if possible.

It was the company’s rule to call them by their stage names just in case.

[Ah… This is the Starlight Collaboration Cafe Planning Team. I’m contacting you about the drink change you mentioned last time.]

“Oh. That’s it. Yes, yes. Go ahead.”

Last time, I requested a change after tasting the collaboration cafe.

Since the cafe event period was almost over, it seemed like they contacted me in a hurry.

[Since the drink price you changed has changed, I contacted you to ask you to visit the cafe before the event and check. That’s why I contacted you.]

“Oh… Okay. I’ll go check when I have time.”

[Yes, yes. I’m sorry to bother you. The manager was on vacation this week, so I had no choice but to contact you directly.]

“No. No. It’s okay. I’d rather appreciate it.”

It seemed like the manager in charge was on vacation, so I must have contacted him.

Since it seemed like the matter was over, I was about to end the call with a closing statement.

The employee asked me carefully.

[Can I ask you something?]

“… Yes? What was it?”

[Did something happen to you earlier? Since you hung up without saying anything.]

“About now? When are you talking about this?”

Since I had only just woken up, I wondered what he was talking about.

[I called you about an hour ago… You answered the phone, listened to me for a bit, and then hung up? So I called back, and you said your phone was turned off… I was wondering if I disturbed you while you were doing something important.]

“Excuse me, just a moment?”

Hearing that, a chill ran down my spine.

If you had heard the conversation, there was a chance you would know my identity…

I quickly checked the call log on my phone and looked through it.

… And there it was.

A call record from the same number as just now.

It was a very short call of about 20 seconds.

Since I was sleeping, unless I had answered the call in my sleep…

There was only one person who could have answered the call.

The person who was in this room with me.

“…Then Ji-bin?”