Rika Kawasaki ultimately did not understand men well enough.
Or rather, she did not understand the complex backlash of human nature under extreme trauma.
She could not comprehend it, nor could she overlap the current scene with the images from not long ago.
Just moments ago, this man was beneath her, his consciousness hazy, his skin flushed with a passionate crimson.
Those slender arms had even unconsciously and dependently wrapped around her neck, responding to her demands with raw, burning innocence.
His breath had mingled with hers, and his body heat had pressed against her, as if every inch of his skin and every shudder were whispering a sort of primal surrender and fusion.
Yet now, those same hands had used all their strength to leave a stinging burn on her face and a deeper, ice-pick-like look of resolution in his eyes.
To be honest, in Kaoru Hoshitani’s current state, his limbs were as weak as if his bones had been removed.
His body was exhausted like a pool of melting snow, and even standing was an immense struggle.
However, a faint red finger-mark remained clearly on Rika Kawasaki’s well-defined, healthy-toned cheek, the stinging sensation continuing to spread.
She did not immediately explode in rage. She did not instantly emit a terrifying pressure as she usually did when faced with a provocation.
She simply kept her head tilted, maintaining the posture she held after being hit, silently and unblinkingly staring at him.
In those gray eyes, which were usually sharp or full of aggression, a thick layer of genuine confusion and incomprehension surfaced—as if she were examining a precision instrument that had suddenly malfunctioned and become incomprehensible.
“You bastard… I hope you rot in hell!”
Kaoru Hoshitani’s voice was hoarse and broken.
His swollen eyes, which were originally as moist and clear as a fawn’s, were now filled with bloodshot veins and a towering resentment.
They were pinned firmly to Rika Kawasaki’s face, his gaze so sharp it could almost pierce through her skin and reach the marrow of her bones.
He gritted his teeth, and every word seemed squeezed from the gaps between them, soaked in a bitterness like gall and an infinite malice.
This was not just a curse; it was like a sharp fragment of his soul splintering in extreme pain, carrying an accusation against the entire unjust world.
He hated it so much.
He hated this absurd world for giving birth to an existence as vile, overbearing, and completely dismissive of others’ wills as Rika Kawasaki—like a disaster that had fallen from the sky.
He hated why she had to break into his ordinary but peaceful life, using her irresistible strength to trample everything he had carefully maintained into pieces, dragging him into this filthy, muddy abyss.
At the same time, that boiling hatred frantically turned back on himself.
He hated his own useless body. He hated that irresistible weakness and betrayal rooted in ancient primal instincts.
He hated that during those long, humiliating hours, he had actually felt a physiological reaction—even being captured by primal physical pleasure in certain moments of blurred consciousness.
He hated that he couldn’t even protect his most precious virginity, treated like a delicate piece of porcelain that someone could easily play with and defile.
This self-loathing was like a poisoned vine, tightly winding around his heart and squeezing tighter and tighter, making him suffocate.
He even…
Inevitably cast a sliver of sharp resentment toward his girlfriend, Aina Saiten, who was not present and entirely unaware.
He hated why she hadn’t sensed his abnormality sooner, why she couldn’t satisfy the hidden desires buried deep in his heart that were so difficult to voice, and even more, he hated why she wasn’t there to ‘protect him forever’ as she had once promised during his moment of greatest need and despair.
As soon as this thought appeared, it brought an even heavier sense of guilt and self-disgust.
But Kaoru Hoshitani, whose rationality was scattered by the massive trauma, could not possibly untangle these chaotic emotions.
Forced to face the cruel reality of “losing his virginity” for the first time, endless negative emotions surged like a bursting dam of black tide from the darkest cracks of his heart, instantly drowning everything.
Shame, anger, despair, self-negation, hostility toward the world…
All sorts of emotions mixed together, searing his nerves.
If he had a knife in his hand right now, he might truly, recklessly plunge it into the chest of the woman who had ruined his life, and then unhesitatingly end his own now-filthy life.
He would use the most extreme method to wash away the shame or carry out a final, feeble revenge.
However, reality was cold.
His body was weak, he was unarmed, and even standing steady was a feat. He knew he could do nothing right now; even dying together was a luxury.
This ultimate sense of powerlessness destroyed him more thoroughly than the hatred did.
An uncontrollable, broken sob escaped his throat.
He suddenly used one hand to death-grip the edge of the bath towel wrapped around him—his last veil of modesty—his knuckles turning white.
With his other hand, he blindly wiped the wet traces of sweat or tears from his face.
Then, barefoot on the cold, smooth hardwood floor, he rushed out of the second bedroom without looking back, as if a vengeful spirit were chasing him.
Because it was already evening and the lights in the corridor were not on, the light was dim. He stumbled, leaning against the wall just to keep from falling.
The stairwell was just ahead. He practically threw himself toward it, grabbing the cold wooden handrail and stumbling down.
The sound of his bare feet on the stairs was frantic and hurried. The soles of his feet felt the cold touch and minor stings, but he was completely oblivious.
He only wanted to be faster, even faster, to escape this villa that felt like a giant beast’s maw, to escape every inch of air filled with that woman’s scent, to escape the nightmare that had completely consumed him.
When he finally rushed to the spacious but oppressive living room on the first floor and saw the heavy door leading to the outside world, a tiny spark of hope erupted from his despair.
He lunged forward, his fingers trembling as they reached for the door handle—
“If you go out like that, do you think passersby won’t film a video and post it online?”
Rika Kawasaki’s voice came from the second floor. It wasn’t loud, and it didn’t even carry any intense emotion.
It was cold, like a precisely thrown ice pick, instantly pinning all of Kaoru Hoshitani’s movements.
He froze on the spot, his hand reaching for the door handle hanging in mid-air, trembling slightly.
Those cold words were like the most vicious curse, instantly awakening his fear of reality.
That was right. He was only wrapped in a single bath towel, his hair was a mess, and his body likely still bore ambiguous marks. To rush out like this in broad daylight…
What kind of strange, probing, or even lewd looks would he be subjected to? What kind of things would people say? What if he really was filmed…
A shudder.
A chill even worse than before climbed up his spine, making him tremble.
The impulse to flee was forcibly suppressed by a greater fear of social suicide. But he did not surrender.
He turned around extremely slowly and looked up. His gaze followed the spiral staircase upward, locking onto the figure behind the railing on the second floor.
Rika Kawasaki had come out of the second bedroom at some point and was leaning casually against the smooth, dark wooden railing.
She was still completely unclothed, her athletic and well-proportioned body appearing as a smooth silhouette in the relatively dim light upstairs.
The hatred in Kaoru Hoshitani’s eyes was almost tangible, shooting toward her like poisoned arrows.
If looks could kill, she would have already been sliced into a thousand pieces.
The two of them stood there—one downstairs, wrapped in a bath towel, disheveled but eyes burning with hatred; the other upstairs, naked and unashamed, looking down with a complex gaze—confronting each other across the vaulted space.
The air solidified. There were only the faint, distant sounds of the city’s background and Kaoru Hoshitani’s own heavy, humiliated breathing that he could not calm.
This one minute felt as long as a century. Every second gnawed at Kaoru Hoshitani’s remaining rationality and dignity.
Ultimately, it was Rika Kawasaki who broke this suffocating silence.
She seemed to let out an extremely soft, almost inaudible sigh. That sigh was mixed with a trace of irritation and… helplessness that even she hadn’t noticed?
She said nothing more, turned away from the railing, and disappeared toward the master bedroom.
Soon, she reappeared, holding a set of neatly folded clothes in her hand—one of the sets she had bought for Kaoru Hoshitani yesterday.
She walked slowly down the stairs, her footsteps echoing clearly in the empty villa.
She stopped in front of Kaoru Hoshitani.
The distance between them was close enough to feel the scent of the same bath lily that hadn’t yet dissipated from their bodies, as well as… those more hidden marks left by that frenzy.
The scene was bizarre and ironic.
The two people who had just been entwined on the bed, their bodies and souls merging in the most intimate contact, were now standing opposite each other nearly naked, yet separated by a vast glacier.
Kaoru Hoshitani was only wearing that thin bath towel, exposing large patches of pale skin and his slender clavicle, which still bore some fading red marks.
His body trembled slightly, whether from the cold or from his desperately suppressed emotions.
Rika Kawasaki, meanwhile, openly displayed her body full of powerful beauty.
Her tanned skin glowed with health under the scattered light from the high window, forming a stinging contrast with Kaoru Hoshitani’s paleness.
Her gray eyes looked at the man before her, at his face that had been dyed a brilliant crimson by passion not long ago but now held only deathly paleness and hatred.
She looked at the naked, undisguised gaze in his eyes, a look one might give a mortal enemy.
Rika Kawasaki, who was nearly a blank slate regarding romantic feelings and used to solving problems with strength and direct means, felt a strange, difficult-to-handle stagnation for the first time.
She seemed to want to say something. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.
She hesitated, and as if driven by some unknown impulse, she slowly raised her right hand.
Her fingertips trembled slightly, appearing as though she wanted to touch Kaoru Hoshitani’s cold, tense cheek to wipe away the wet traces at the corner of his eyes or smooth his furrowed brow.
This movement carried a hint of stiff, experimental reconciliation.
However, her hand was slammed away by Kaoru Hoshitani almost instantly, with all the strength he could muster.
“Don’t touch me!”
Kaoru Hoshitani’s voice was sharp and broken, filled with ultimate disgust.
He lunged backward as if avoiding the filthiest plague, and then he snatched the set of clothes from Rika Kawasaki’s hand.
He turned his back, his movements frantic and clumsy as he tore off the bath towel, letting it slide to the floor, and then scrambled to put the clothes on.
The shirt buttons failed to align with the buttonholes several times, and the zipper of the pants was particularly disobedient.
The entire process was filled with a frantic urgency to wrap himself up and a sense of being on the verge of collapse.
Finally, he was dressed, though not very neatly. He quickly found his shoes and threw them on, not even taking the time to tie the laces.
Throughout the entire process, Rika Kawasaki just stood there, watching in silence.
She didn’t try to stop him again, nor did she speak. Deep in her gray eyes, that confusion swirled with a darker, more indefinable emotion.
She watched him finish everything. She watched him give her one last glare with those swollen eyes burning with hatred—a look that seemed intended to brand her with an eternal curse.
Then, Kaoru Hoshitani violently twisted open the heavy door.
The gloomy twilight swallowed his thin silhouette.
He stumbled once and rushed out without looking back. His figure quickly disappeared into the background of the courtyard plants and the street.
Thud.
The door slowly closed automatically behind him, letting out a dull, soft sound, finally separating the inside from the outside.
The interior of the villa fell back into a massive, suffocating silence.
Only the subtle scent of lust mixed with sweat that hadn’t completely dissipated in the air and the discarded, crumpled white bath towel on the floor silently proved that everything that had just happened was not an illusion.
Rika Kawasaki still stood in place. Her naked body, standing beside the sliver of light coming through the door crack, appeared both powerful and somehow…
Lonely.
She looked down at the back of her hand, which he had hit away and was now slightly red.
Then she looked up at the closed door, her brow furrowing imperceptibly.
In those gray eyes that were always firm and decisive, a clear, chaotic ripple she couldn’t name appeared for the first time.
And with her heart in such a mess, from beginning to end, she never made a sound to stop him…
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