Chapter 140: Tobacco (Part 1)

It wasn’t until the clock struck four somewhere faintly in the villa that time within the room seemed to begin flowing again.

The sunlight outside was already slanting westward.

Beams of light filtered through the gaps in the heavy curtains, transforming into faint, tilted pillars of gold that carved out blurred boundaries of light and shadow within the dim bedroom.

The air was permeated with a thick, lingering scent—sweat, bodily fluids, the foreshadowing of tobacco about to be lit, and the specific lethargy and decadence that settles after passion.

Rika Kawasaki finally came to a stop.

Clutching her side, which was incredibly sore and throbbing with the burning dull pain of overuse, she moved somewhat sluggishly to roll off Kaoru Hoshitani, sitting heavily on the edge of the messy bed.

The expensive sheets were wrinkled beyond recognition, soaked in sweat, and made a faint rustling sound beneath her.

Come to think of it, even after spending a whole day at the gym, Rika Kawasaki had never felt this exhausted.

Although Kaoru Hoshitani had passed out halfway through countless times, his seemingly soft body appeared to possess immense resilience.

Rika Kawasaki clearly felt that she still hadn’t touched this little man’s limit, which made her somewhat dissatisfied.

After all, in her view, even though her physical compatibility with this little man was so good, they weren’t perfectly matched yet.

However, she quickly attributed this to her own lack of experience; after honing her skills a few more times, she would surely be able to completely conquer Kaoru Hoshitani.

With some effort, her other hand fished out a cigarette case and lighter from the pile of clothes scattered on the floor; the metal casing felt cold to the touch.

She placed a slender cigarette between her lips and leaned into the flickering flame.

With a soft click, the orange glow illuminated her sweat-dampened profile and slightly narrowed grey eyes.

“Mmm… Phew…”

She took a deep, long drag, letting the acrid smoke roll down her throat and sear her lungs before slowly exhaling the cloud of milky white smoke from her slightly parted lips in an attitude of near satiety.

The smoke curled up and diffused in the dim light, blurring the sharp contours of her face.

Those grey eyes were narrowed comfortably in extreme relief and relaxation.

The storm of desire churning in their depths had temporarily subsided, replaced by the satisfaction of a predator after a full meal—almost lazy.

Rika Kawasaki had never particularly cared for the somewhat vulgar saying, “A cigarette after sex makes you feel like a god,” but at this moment, she viscerally understood the emptiness and pleasure that came with that dual release of body and mind.

The stimulation of the tobacco perfectly soothed her heightened nerves and marked a temporary ceasefire in this long “battle.”

However, this pleasure of smoking alone did not last long.

An inexplicable, subtle sense of unease began to spread through her heart, as if something was missing, preventing her from fully enjoying this moment of tranquility.

She frowned, her gaze subconsciously shifting to her side—to the slender figure lying motionless in the messy bedding, appearing lifeless.

Almost out of instinct, she reached out and, with undeniable force, dragged Kaoru Hoshitani’s limp, pliant body from the center of the bed into her sweat-dampened embrace.

Only when that cool, delicate skin pressed against her still-burning chest, and his shallow, erratic breathing brushed against the side of her neck, did Rika Kawasaki let out an almost inaudible sigh.

That inexplicable void was filled, and a true sense of satisfaction slowly welled up.

At this moment, Kaoru Hoshitani was so quiet he didn’t seem like a living person; he was more like a piece of exquisite porcelain discarded after overuse, or an expensive doll with loose joints.

His limbs were limp and lifeless, allowing Rika Kawasaki to adjust his posture and pull him into her arms as if he were a large stuffed toy.

His eyes were tightly closed, and his long, thick eyelashes cast two small, fragile shadows on his pale cheeks.

His breathing was so shallow it was almost imperceptible; only the extremely faint rise and fall of his chest proved he was still breathing.

Looking down at his appearance of total dependence—or rather, inability to resist—a thought mixed with possessiveness and a nasty sense of humor surfaced in Rika Kawasaki’s mind.

Like a mischievous child who had discovered a new toy, she took the cigarette, which had already burned down a bit, between two fingers and removed it from her mouth.

Then, with a casual probing intent, she slowly inserted the filter—still stained with the faint wetness of her saliva—between Kaoru Hoshitani’s slightly parted, unusually moist, and swollen lips.

Normally, the lips of someone who hadn’t drunk water all afternoon and had undergone intense exercise with significant fluid loss should be dry and peeling.

However, Kaoru Hoshitani’s lips currently presented a plump, decadent moistness from being “over-moisturized,” even appearing slightly swollen and darker than usual.

The “reason” for this was likely something only Rika Kawasaki, who had just finished this “irrigation,” and Kaoru Hoshitani, who had passively endured it all, understood clearly.

Kaoru Hoshitani was in a semi-conscious state, drifting in and out of awareness.

When the filter, carrying the unfamiliar scent of tobacco and the slightly salty wetness of the woman’s saliva, touched his lips and was slightly held by his unconscious breathing, his delicate and sensitive lungs—which had never touched a cigarette—were instantly irritated by the invading, acrid smoke.

“Cough! Cough, cough, cough—!”

A violent coughing fit, as if trying to cough up his lungs, suddenly erupted from deep within his throat.

His slender body jerked uncontrollably like a spasm in Rika Kawasaki’s arms.

His pale cheeks quickly flushed red from suffocation, and physiological tears spilled from the corners of his tightly closed eyes, sliding down his temples and disappearing into his sweat-dampened hairline.

Watching this scene, Rika Kawasaki didn’t immediately take the cigarette away. Instead, she let out a low, husky chuckle from her throat.

There wasn’t much genuine worry in that laughter; it was more a feeling of amusement, even tinged with a bit of satisfaction.

In her view, this wasn’t just a simple prank, but a secret “marking” and “reformation.”

This little man, from his body to his habits, from resistance to forced endurance, and even to this moment of unconsciously inhaling the scent of her tobacco…

He was being influenced and changed by her, bit by bit, irreversibly.

Even if this change was heading in a direction of “depravity,” it greatly satisfied her nasty possessiveness—everything about him, including this pathetic “first time,” was caused by her and controlled by her.

However, she only let Kaoru Hoshitani choke on that one puff before quickly pulling the saliva-darkened filter from his lips and placing it back into her own mouth.

She took another deep drag, then pursed her lips slightly, slowly blowing a nearly perfect, curling white smoke ring at Kaoru Hoshitani’s face, which looked particularly miserably beautiful due to the coughing and tears.

The smoke ring gently shrouded his mouth and nose before slowly dissipating.

At this moment, due to the heart-wrenching coughing and the irritation of the tobacco, Kaoru Hoshitani was finally forcibly dragged awake from his semi-conscious stupor.

Difficultly and extremely slowly, he opened those “little deer eyes” that were already haggard and bloodshot.

His vision was blurry at first, then gradually focused—the first thing to enter his sight was that face shrouded in swirling smoke, with damp blonde hair, a lazy smile, and grey eyes gazing down at him.

Rika Kawasaki.

This name, along with the memories of what had just happened—memories temporarily fragmented by the extreme shock—now crashed into his mind like a floodgate opening, bringing with them all the unbearable details and shameful sounds.

He remembered how, on the verge of delirium and mental collapse, under this woman’s inducement and coercion, he had spoken those shameless, lewd words demeaning and even insulting his girlfriend, Aina Saiten.

He remembered how, while forced to interlock fingers tightly with her, he had completely broken down under her fierce offensive, uncontrollably crying out her name, begging for an illusory release or a deeper sinking…

“Ugh…”

An extremely faint, broken sob escaped uncontrollably from his trembling lips.

His newly awakened consciousness didn’t have time to build a defense before immense shame, self-loathing, and guilt toward Aina acted like three cold files, instantly grinding the last bit of his dignity and rationality into dust.

Tears filled his eyes again without warning, rolling down his cheeks in large drops, mixing with the previous physiological tears and quickly soaking the sheets beneath his face.

When Rika Kawasaki saw the little man open his eyes and, before saying a word, reveal this pitiful look as if the sky had fallen and he was about to cry, a trace of unfamiliar pity—something even she hadn’t clearly defined—involuntarily seeped into the satiety born of absolute control.

“Alright,”

Her voice was softer than before, but still carried the raspiness of the aftermath and an unquestionable tone.

She even raised the hand holding the cigarette and used the back of her fingers to somewhat rudely wipe the tears from his face, her movements not exactly gentle.

“It’s just sex between a man and a woman. What’s done is done; you don’t need to feel such strong guilt.”

She tried to “comfort” him with a relaxed tone, though to Kaoru Hoshitani’s ears, this comfort was no different from adding oil to a fire.

“Didn’t I tell you before?”

She continued, her grey eyes staring closely at him, her tone carrying an inductive certainty:

“This is all because of your useless girlfriend. If it weren’t for her own incompetence and inability to satisfy you, you wouldn’t have had to endure so hard for so long, right? Holding it in too long is bad for both your body and mind.”

Kaoru Hoshitani abruptly turned his head to the side and squeezed his eyes shut, his long eyelashes trembling like butterfly wings in the wind.

He didn’t want to see this face anymore.

He didn’t want to hear another word from this woman who had not only violently raped his body but was now trying to corrode his mind with words and drive a wedge between him and Aina.

Every word was like a poison needle piercing his most cherished emotions.

However, he chose an evasive silence rather than fierce rebuttal or angry cursing.

This subtle attitude… perhaps even he didn’t realize that in a corner of his heart, shaken to its foundations, a faint and shameful voice was admitting:

Rika Kawasaki’s words were not entirely fabricated lies.

The desires suppressed for so long that he was ashamed to face them, and the fatigue and “inability” Aina occasionally showed due to work and physical limits—these details he had deliberately ignored or rationalized were now difficult to completely deny after experiencing such an extreme “comparison.”

This wavering itself made him feel doubled guilt and panic.

Rika Kawasaki’s grey eyes, which seemed capable of piercing through to the human heart, keenly captured the subtle emotions within him and the wavering hidden behind his silence.

Her heart stirred. Like a predator discovering a crack in its prey’s defense, she immediately pressed her advantage, her tone becoming even more coaxing, even taking on a hint of “rationality” to defend her twisted logic.

“Right? You know it clearly in your heart.”

She leaned closer, her hot breath spraying the scent of tobacco onto his sensitive ear:

“Since your girlfriend lacks the ability herself, what is wrong with you finding another capable woman to resolve your normal physiological desires out of necessity? It’s very fair, isn’t it?”

She paused slightly, a glint flashing in her grey eyes, and threw out the definition she had carefully prepared to “rationalize” their twisted relationship:

“So, Kaoru,”

She called his name, her voice low and carrying a tone of proclamation:

“What we have now… should be considered a legitimate, mutually beneficial ‘friends with benefits relationship.’ You get your release, I get my enjoyment. No one owes anyone anything, and there’s certainly no talk of betrayal.”

“‘Friends with benefits relationship’?”

Kaoru Hoshitani looked as if he had been burned by this absurd term.

He jerked his head back, widening those tear-stained “little deer eyes” filled with shock and disbelief, staring fixedly at Rika Kawasaki’s face inches away.

He simply couldn’t understand how thick-skinned and black-and-white-reversing a person had to be to twist a one-sided, sustained coercion and violation so lightly into a “legitimate,” “mutually beneficial” “friends with benefits relationship”?

That naked threat, that irresistible violence, that desire for conquest that trampled his dignity into the ground… in her mouth, it all turned into a consensual “transaction”?

“You…!”

He opened his mouth, squeezing out a broken syllable from a throat dry and stinging from dehydration and emotional agitation.

His chest heaved violently with anger and a sense of absurdity. He wanted to curse her, to tear apart her hypocritical face with the most vicious words.

However, the moment he gathered a sliver of strength, Rika Kawasaki seemed to have already anticipated his reaction.

She didn’t give him any chance to organize his words or voice an accusation.

A trace of understanding and unquestionable control flashed through those grey eyes.

She suddenly lowered her head and, with precision, the scent of tobacco, and irresistible force, heavily kissed his lips—which were slightly parted in shock and attempting to speak.

“Mmph…!”

All words, all anger, all thoughts of struggle were once again savagely blocked and swallowed up by this dominant and deep kiss.