For Kaoru Hoshitani, the familiar and hopeless torment of a new day began the moment the door was violently flung open.
Outside the window, the autumn midday sunlight was blazing and almost blinding, yet it could not penetrate the thick, oppressive atmosphere filling the Living Room.
The air seemed to have frozen, broken only by his own increasingly rapid and erratic breathing, and by another undeniable presence, exuding an aggressive sense of dominance.
Perhaps, after three days of relentless and intense “baptism,” Kaoru Hoshitani’s delicate, sensitive nerves had been forced to “evolve” a pitiful trace of resistance—or perhaps it was simply a kind of numb endurance.
However, when the hands of the Clock on the wall pointed precisely to noon and the morning’s endless variety of “games” finally came to a pause—
His entire body felt as if all strength had been drained away, lying as tense as a fully drawn bowstring about to snap, stretched out straight on the Living Room Sofa, the beige fabric now wrinkled and creased from being trampled.
His small, pale hands—nearly transparent—clung desperately to the fabric beneath him, fingers digging so tightly that the knuckles stood out, bloodless, the nails nearly embedding themselves in the threads, as if this was the only driftwood he could grasp amidst a raging sea.
He bit down hard, beautiful pearly teeth sinking deep into the soft flesh of his lower lip, leaving a deep impression.
He was fighting with every last shred of willpower against the surging waves of sensation—each stronger than the last, stirred up by the other’s expert touch and vicious methods—waves that threatened to destroy both his reason and his shame.
He dreaded that, if he let his jaw unclench, those desperate, humiliating pleas already burning in his throat—begging a woman for intimacy—would escape uncontrollably, laced with the basest tremor, from a mouth that had already been violated countless times.
That, to him, would be a defeat even more total than losing his body.
“Heh heh…”
A light, careless laugh, as if it had nothing to do with her, shattered the silence of Kaoru Hoshitani’s solitary struggle.
Rika Kawasaki gazed down at the taut, trembling figure on the sofa, not with anger, but with a cat’s playful satisfaction at tormenting a mouse.
She stood up unhurriedly, her tall, athletic frame casting a wide shadow across the Living Room, enveloping Kaoru Hoshitani beneath it.
Stretching her shoulders and arms, sore from holding a certain posture for too long, her joints made a faint cracking sound, and only then did she announce in a mocking, frivolous tone:
“That’s it for the first half. I’m hungry. Go, make me lunch.”
Her words landed in the air like a command.
Yet the person on the sofa lay there as if he hadn’t heard at all, rigid and motionless, the only signs of life the rise and fall of his chest and the quiver of his lashes betraying the turmoil within.
Rika Kawasaki raised an eyebrow, unsurprised. She crouched down again, leaning forward, bringing with her an oppressive aura mixed with a faint trace of tobacco and her own unique scent.
She reached out her large, healthy, wheat-colored hand, the fingers well-defined, and with just enough force—not too light or too hard—she patted Kaoru Hoshitani’s face, now flushed red like a ripe peach.
The burning heat she felt beneath her fingertips made the smile at her lips deepen.
Then, with deliberate cruelty, she pinched his small, delicately arched nose—currently flaring slightly with each labored breath—between her thumb and forefinger.
“Mm…!”
The sudden suffocation forced a muffled sound from Kaoru Hoshitani, his body jerking in a futile struggle, drained and pinned as he was.
Seconds seemed to stretch out endlessly.
The scant oxygen left in his lungs was quickly depleted, and the instinct to survive began to overwhelm everything else.
Dizziness and panic from lack of air washed over his mind like a black tide.
At last, pushed to his physiological limit, he could no longer keep his jaw clenched. He was forced to part his numb lips in an attempt to suck in life-saving air.
Yet at the very instant his pale, soft lips parted just a fraction, what spilled out from deep in his throat was not the desperate, hissing gasp he expected, but a strange, sticky-sweet, unrecognizably coquettish sound that even he was startled by:
“Ah… le…”
The sound was short, but dripping with seductive fragility—like the whimper of a young beast pushed to its limits.
It echoed clearly in the stillness of the Living Room, lingering faintly in the air.
The moment the sound left his lips, Kaoru Hoshitani’s eyes—glazed with the mist of suffocation and arousal—snapped back to sharp clarity, now wide with horror!
He realized!
Realized exactly what kind of shameless sound he had just made!
A tidal wave of shame crashed over him like a bucket of ice water, making his already red cheeks almost bleed.
As if scalded by his own voice, he clenched his lips shut even tighter, biting hard into the inside of his mouth, desperate to punish and suppress the unruly body that had betrayed him.
The fragile hope in his heart—that maybe the woman hadn’t heard or would ignore it—was smashed to pieces the very next second.
Because right in front of him were Rika Kawasaki’s eyes, so close he could see every detail—eyes now glinting openly with ridicule, amusement, and the thrill of conquest, gazing at him like a rare prize.
That gaze was sharp as a knife, stripping away every trace of his attempted concealment.
“Ha…”
Rika Kawasaki let out a knowing, satisfied laugh.
Her fingers tightened on Kaoru Hoshitani’s cheeks, compelling his tightly pressed lips to part once more, revealing the faint glimpse of his pink tongue and pearly teeth.
“What’s wrong? Felt so good you just couldn’t help it, is that it?”
Her voice was low and full of wicked temptation, tinged with a victor’s taunt.
“Your ‘useless’ girlfriend—no matter how hard she tries—can’t satisfy you, so you’re forced to hold it in like some pitiful wretch… But me? I have to ‘take care’ of you, stopping every few minutes just so I don’t break you…”
She paused deliberately, her warm breath brushing over his sensitive ear and neck.
“But look—if I just blow gently on you up here… you’ll break down completely, making such lovely sounds… Seems like I’m the only one who can truly satisfy you, isn’t that right? Your body is a thousand times more honest than that stubborn mouth of yours.”
Hearing the yellow-haired woman so ruthlessly strip away his last shreds of dignity and belittle every ounce of his resistance, Kaoru Hoshitani felt his very soul pinned to a pillar of shame by those steely gray eyes.
He wanted desperately to shake his head, to shout a denial, to protect the last bit of pure faith in Aina that he held in his heart.
But he couldn’t.
It wasn’t just his body being pinned down. Deep inside, there was a dark corner—one he didn’t dare acknowledge—that, under her words and touch, was beginning to tremble with shameful resonance.
Even the strength and courage to deny her with his gaze was stripped away beneath that mocking look.
“Go on, keep pretending, you stubborn little thing.”
Rika Kawasaki showed not a hint of impatience or frustration. Instead, like a patient hunter, she watched with pleasure as her prey made its final, futile struggles in the trap.
She released his face, but her gaze still clung to him, as sticky as a spider’s web.
“There’s still three days left after today… We’ve got plenty of time.”
She changed her tone, her words reverting to that imperious command:
“Now, you—go cook. I’m hungry.”
She paused, her eyes trailing over the disarray of his clothes and exposed skin, adding, her tone playful and full of malicious delight:
“And—you’re only allowed to wear the Apron. Nothing else.”
She was in no hurry.
Kaoru Hoshitani might still naively think that by sheer willpower, he’d managed to “hold on” for these days, defending some kind of line.
But Rika Kawasaki—she had seen and remembered every tiny, involuntary response in that beautiful body: every muscle tremble, every racing pulse, every rise in skin temperature, even every suppressed whimper caught in his throat, under her every touch and every order.
It was a sculpture of ice, slowly but surely melting, every crack and fracture well within her grasp.
If she wanted, she could shatter all his defenses here and now—make this little man cast away every shred of pride, every pretense, and beg for her “favor” with nothing left.
But instead, she found herself unexpectedly—perhaps even addictively—savoring the slow, gradual breaking, the process of conquest.
It was far more exhilarating, mentally, than mere physical possession.
Rika Kawasaki gazed at those tear-filled, deer-like eyes, still stubbornly refusing to give in completely, and felt a surge of anticipation.
She wanted to see what expression would bloom on that pure, delicate face, when the last thread of “endurance” and “faithfulness to his girlfriend” in his mind, pulled tighter and tighter each day by her hands, finally snapped—
What ultimate, beautiful, and corrupted look of collapse, release, desire, and total submission would appear in that instant.
That, she thought, would be the most perfect “work” in her collection.