To this day, Yuki Haruto did not know—or rather, he was unwilling to clearly recall and confirm—exactly how many women had gang-raped him that afternoon.
The latter half of his memory was fragmented: blurred images distorted by drugs and intense sensory stimulation, mixed with sickening odors, the sticky sensation of skin, rising and falling heavy breaths, and abandoned, dissolute laughter.
His consciousness was like a small boat completely lost in stormy waves, dragged into a dark whirlpool and finally sinking.
Meanwhile, those delinquent girls, acting like maggots attached to his bones, had used their cell phones to clearly record many unsightly photographs and videos of him.
These images became ice-cold shackles, displayed before him as tools to threaten him against calling the police and to force him into obedient submission.
Those shaking camera angles, the blinding flashes of light, and the sight of his own lifeless eyes and forced poses in the images crushed his remaining dignity more thoroughly than direct violence ever could.
In truth, during the latter half of that long humiliation, Yuki Haruto did not feel sharp physical pain.
This was all thanks to the short delinquent known as Murata, who had a head of glaring green hair.
With a cruel smirk, she had forcefully gripped his jaw, forcing his mouth open, and then shoved an unknown white powder with a strange odor into his nasal cavity and down his throat.
At first, there was a violent fit of coughing and a burning sensation, but soon, a strange numbness and lightheadedness swept over him.
The world began to spin, change colors, and lose its boundaries.
The pain and humiliation seemed to be pushed far away, turning into a farce he was watching through a layer of frosted glass that had nothing to do with him.
On the brink of a breakdown, his consciousness was forcibly dragged into a deeper, muddled abyss by that chemical substance.
When he finally struggled to wake up from a state of total emptiness and silence an unknown amount of time later, the first things he felt were a burning thirst in his throat and an aching soreness in his bones, as if his entire body had fallen apart.
Immediately, the fragmented memory pieces from before he lost consciousness scurried back into his mind like venomous snakes.
Coupled with the strange, lingering sweet taste in his mouth, he instantly understood what that white powder had been.
Massive fear and even deeper despair overwhelmed him. He wanted to cry, to scream, and to tear at his hair, but his eyes were as dry as a desert.
His tears had already run dry at some point without him knowing, and his throat could only produce broken, hoarse gasps.
How much time does it take for a person to completely fall, to become unrecognizable in body, mind, and appearance?
If someone had asked Yuki Haruto this question before, he might have given a long, imaginary scenario filled with a process of struggle.
But now, he would use his own living example to tell you bitterly and numbly:
It only takes one week.
In just seven days, the Yuki Haruto who once had smooth, long black hair, a clean and handsome face, and the clear eyes unique to a high school student had disappeared from the inside out.
In his place was a boy with a shocking, abrupt hair color crudely done with hair dye.
Several shiny metal studs had been added to his ears, and there was even a small but rebellious piercing in his lower lip. He wore revealing clothes that were clearly ill-fitting and exaggerated in style.
In just that one week, the count for Yuki Haruto’s “number of partners” had broken into the double digits.
At the cost of his body, he had become a tool for those delinquent girls to vent their violence and desire.
Every instance was accompanied by endless threats and the numbness of drugs.
And during this week of rapid descent, of rotting and stinking, deep within Yuki Haruto’s heart—which perhaps had not yet completely died—he uncontrollably slid deeper into the mire while a tiny, extremely faint glimmer of expectation remained.
Even though he knew it might already be too late.
But his hope, like a candle in the wind, was quickly extinguished.
The delinquent girls told him with mockery and disdain, “Stop dreaming. Our Leader is busy chasing the man she has her eye on lately. She doesn’t have time to deal with small matters like us.”
It was from their fragmented discussions and taunts that he firmly remembered that woman’s name — Rika Kawasaki.
This name became tightly intertwined with his fall, his hatred, and that pathetic bit of expectation.
While Yuki Haruto sat in this confined space filled with the smell of beer, cigarettes, cheap perfume, sweat, and a decadent atmosphere, letting the surrounding noise drown him with vacant eyes, the door to the villa was suddenly pushed open and slammed shut with a heavy thud.
Rika Kawasaki had finally appeared.
But she did not scan the room with eyes of salvation or even attention, as Yuki Haruto had subconsciously hoped.
She didn’t even look at anyone. She walked straight to the large leather sofa in the center of the living room and threw herself into it, sinking into the soft cushions.
She still carried the slight chill of the night wind and the scent of the clean air outside, which was completely out of place with the foul atmosphere inside the villa.
A subordinate immediately and diligently handed her an ice-cold canned beer.
She took it, popped the tab with one hand, and tilted her head back to take a large gulp.
Her Adam’s apple bobbed as a few drops of amber liquid slid down her wheat-colored neck and disappeared into her collar.
She remained silent, just drinking one mouthful after another.
Her gray eyes stared at a certain point in the empty space ahead, and she radiated an even heavier, gloomy low pressure that warned others not to approach.
Her already cold face was now shrouded in a thick, inseparable cloud.
A deep frown was etched between her brows, and those eyes that were always sharp and aggressive or full of wildness now clearly held confusion, annoyance, and something… almost like defeat.
Yuki Haruto curled up in an inconspicuous armchair in the corner of the living room, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman.
He watched her intently, noting her posture that remained straight even though she was frustrated, the smooth line of her neck as she tilted her head to drink, and her well-defined knuckles as she gripped the beer can.
He saw the confusion and frustration on her face.
‘It’s because of that man… the man she’s chasing…’
The lowered but still clear voices of the delinquent girls’ gossip, mixed with the smoke of low-quality cigarettes, drifted into his ears.
They were speculating if the Leader had suffered a setback in her “courtship.”
An indescribable emotion, like thick, black oil, bubbled out from the darkest cracks of Yuki Haruto’s heart.
It was jealousy, resentment, and bitterness.
He hated that man he had never met. Why did he deserve the favor and pursuit of this powerful woman?
Meanwhile, he was thrown here like trash, trampled by these scumbags, his name too trivial to even mention.
This hatred scorched his already battered heart, bringing a twisted sense of pleasure and a self-destructive urge.
——
Rika Kawasaki had followed the taxi Kaoru Hoshitani was in all the way.
She watched the roof light disappear into the entrance of the apartment building and stayed downstairs quietly for a while.
Only then, carrying an irrepressible frustration, she jerked the steering wheel and drove to this villa where her delinquent subordinates gathered, a place she didn’t often visit.
She simply couldn’t understand it.
The facts were right in front of him: the material conditions she could provide for that young man—and even the completely different lifestyle stimulation and physical pleasure he could experience—far surpassed what his mediocre, incompetent girlfriend could offer.
Furthermore, she could feel that when Kaoru Hoshitani faced her, his body’s survival instinct and the momentary wavering in his eyes were not entirely based on resistance.
There was a primal, intense attraction between them.
As for the fact that they eventually had sex, she admitted she had used some small tricks, but in the final analysis, hadn’t he failed to hold that last line of defense under the impact of desire?
Their bodies were so compatible; every touch was like lighting dry tinder.
During the process, she could clearly feel his reaction as he gradually succumbed. It wasn’t entirely a display of forced pain.
He clearly enjoyed the ultimate pleasure as well.
But why?
Why did he seem like a different person the moment he got off the bed and put his clothes back on?
That slap, that gaze full of hatred, that back as he fled without a hint of attachment…
What exactly was he being so difficult about? Was it shyness? Regret? Fear? Or his ridiculous loyalty to that useless girlfriend?
This feeling of being unable to control or understand was causing Rika Kawasaki, who was used to solving problems with strength and direct action, to feel an unprecedented level of irritation.
Never before in her life had she experienced an emotion similar to “love” for any member of the opposite sex.
That afternoon, during the moment her soul and flesh truly merged with Kaoru Hoshitani’s for the first time, that intense feeling that had been suppressed for over ten years with nowhere to go—a feeling she hadn’t even clearly recognized—erupted violently like a volcano.
She thought that the close connection of that moment signified some kind of beginning.
She thought she could sleep tonight holding that soft, obedient body and experience a foreign kind of peace.
She hadn’t expected that in just a few hours, she would so quickly taste the bitter flavor of something like “heartbreak.”
She could only hide here alone, using alcohol to wash her throat, yet it couldn’t wash away the frustration in her heart.
Especially when she involuntarily imagined that man snuggling with his ordinary girlfriend in that cramped apartment right now… perhaps even the two of them were doing the very things she and he had done that afternoon…
This thought gnawed at her nerves like a venomous snake, causing her knuckles to turn pale as she tightened her grip on the beer can.
At that moment, a set of cautious footsteps approached.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a figure stop by the sofa.
It was a boy with dyed blond hair, ear and lip piercings, and revealing clothes.
His appearance was no different from the “toys” brought by the incompetent delinquents under her command.
However, this face… she seemed to have a vague impression of it.
The boy actually knelt down, his posture carrying a deliberately imitated submissiveness.
He reached out and picked up an unopened beer from the nearby coffee table, prying it open with an opener in a slightly clumsy motion. Then, he looked up at Rika Kawasaki.
His gaze was complex: there was fear, a trace of lingering expectation, and a murky, fawning light.
“I… can I have a drink with you?”
The boy’s voice sounded, trying to be low, yet still carrying the innocence of a boy whose voice hadn’t fully matured and a trace of undetectable trembling.
Yuki Haruto observed Rika Kawasaki’s gloomy expression.
He felt that when a woman suffered a setback in her emotions, she might want to regain her confidence and comfort from another man who was easier to control.
By kneeling here and offering wine, he was making a humble attempt to get her attention.
Even if he was only treated as a tool for venting desire or a temporary substitute, at least… at least he could be closer to her. Perhaps that could change something?
With an expectation he was unwilling to admit even to himself, he looked into Rika Kawasaki’s eyes.
However, what he saw were those gray eyes, like a frozen lake, turning coldly toward him.
There was no trace of being moved, no inquiry, and no interest. There was only a pure, unmasked disgust.
That gaze was like an invisible whip, ruthlessly lashing his newly gathered, pathetic self-esteem.
It was as if he were some sickening filth that defiled her vision.
Then, a cold, temperatureless word was spat from Rika Kawasaki’s tightly pressed lips, hitting Yuki Haruto’s face like a hard stone:
“Get out.”