“You really are lucky… Hahaha… You were born to seduce women, weren’t you? Deep down, you’re just a filthy, low-born slut!”
Yamada was panting heavily, her murky eyes bloodshot and brimming with undisguised greed.
Roughly, she balled up the piece of intimate clothing she’d just stripped from Kaoru Hoshitani’s trembling body—still warm with his heat—and stuffed it into his slightly open mouth, choking off all possible cries or pleas for help. In doing so, she freed up the hand she’d been using to cover his mouth.
Next, she took the Companion Belt that had been tied around his Yukata and used it as a makeshift restraint.
She yanked Kaoru Hoshitani’s slender, pale wrists behind his back and bound them tightly, tying a dead knot.
As she did all this, she continued to hurl filthy words at him, trampling his already shattered pride without restraint.
“Otherwise… how could even a place like that… look so pretty on you, huh? Isn’t it obvious you were born to serve women?”
After completing these preparations, Yamada’s face twisted into an ugly, triumphant smile.
Unable to contain herself, she began tearing at her own clothes, the sound of buttons snapping off echoing in the silence.
Meanwhile, Kaoru Hoshitani caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye of that middle-aged woman’s body—misshapen by indulgence and drunkenness, sagging, bloated, nauseating.
Whatever feeble hope had remained within him was completely extinguished, as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.
In utter despair, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut. His long eyelashes trembled violently, like the wings of a dying butterfly, unwilling to witness the ugliest scene this world had to offer.
For some reason, at this very moment of utter despair and humiliation, a cold seed of resentment towards his girlfriend, Aina Saiten, welled up from deep within him.
After all… the distance from here to the Private Room where she was couldn’t be more than twenty meters in a straight line!
He was about to be violated by the drunken colleague she had brought along, doomed to a pit of endless ruin.
And yet… where was she?
She still hadn’t appeared, hadn’t shown up like the hero in a fairy tale to save her boyfriend in time.
She was just nearby, completely unaware of his suffering—or perhaps simply powerless.
[Help me… anyone… please… someone stop this…]
As the woman’s reeking, alcohol-laced body—hot and disgusting—pressed closer, her rough, clammy hands crawling hungrily over his cold, trembling skin, Kaoru Hoshitani issued one last, voiceless, shattered, and absolute plea for help in the depths of his soul.
His consciousness was nearly swallowed by the overwhelming terror and humiliation.
Yet it seemed, somewhere in the darkness, that a god had finally heard his silent prayer at the last possible moment.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
The narrow, hopeless stall door shook violently under powerful blows from outside!
—————
Rika Kawasaki had been feeling inexplicably irritable these past few days, like a volcano on the verge of eruption, ignited by the slightest spark.
And she knew all too well who was to blame for this nameless fire: that man who always seemed so innocent.
Every day in the Kawasaki Family Izakaya, watching the pure-faced, seemingly naïve Kaoru Hoshitani drift beneath her nose in his dark blue Yukata, that slim waist so perfectly outlined—she couldn’t help but recall, over and over, that fleeting glimpse she’d caught of his supple, white body in the dim warehouse that day.
That image had seared itself into her mind, impossible to erase.
Especially after spending hours in the sweltering, greasy heat of the Kitchen, her vest drenched with sweat, Rika Kawasaki felt stifled, hot and restless both inside and out.
When the dinner rush finally passed and there were no new orders in the Kitchen, she at last took a breather and stepped out of the steamy, suffocating back area.
She walked straight to the counter and gulped down several mouthfuls of ice-cold Oolong Tea, trying to quench her thirst and cool her inner agitation.
Feeling little relief, she decided to go have a Cigarette—hoping nicotine would help release and calm her restless nerves.
Since smoking wasn’t allowed inside the restaurant—and her Grandfather Kawasaki and Grandmother Kawasaki would definitely scold her if they saw—Rika Kawasaki made her way to the Restroom to sneak a smoke.
As she pushed open the somewhat heavy restroom door and entered the space, faintly scented with Cleansing Agent, she instinctively pulled out her cigarette case from her pocket, expertly shook out a slender Cigarette and held it between her lips.
With a “click,” she flipped open her Lighter, ready to strike the flame.
At that moment, from the corner of her eye, she spotted a lone, traditional Geta lying on the floor outside one of the stalls.
The abrupt and strange sight made her freeze mid-motion, brows furrowing in wariness.
After all, in the restaurant, only Grandfather Kawasaki and Kaoru Hoshitani—when dressed in full Yukata—would wear this kind of Geta.
But no matter whose it was, a single abandoned Geta shouldn’t appear here like this. It was far too unusual, reeking of something sinister.
Rika Kawasaki immediately took the Cigarette from her mouth, clenching it tightly in her hand, her brows drawn deep in a frown.
Holding her breath and making no sound, she focused all her senses on listening for the slightest anomaly in the air.
Sure enough, after a brief silence, she caught the faintest sound of a man’s whimpering, coming from the innermost stall with the tightly closed door!
The sound was as weak as a wounded cub’s cry, yet it stabbed straight through Rika Kawasaki’s nerves like a knife!
“Open up! Open this door right now!”
Realizing something was terribly wrong, Rika Kawasaki pounded her palm hard against the closed stall door, making a deep, resounding “thud-thud” and shouted sharply.
“Bastard! Why are you banging the door? Get lost! Mind your own business! Don’t you dare…”
A woman’s frantic, drunken voice—tongue thick from drink, harsh and ugly—immediately answered from inside.
But the last words, “Don’t you dare…” were clearly not directed at Rika Kawasaki outside, but at someone else inside—the man whimpering within.
Rika Kawasaki didn’t hesitate any longer. Worried that kicking the door might hurt the man inside, she acted at once, raising her hand and gripping the top edge of the stall door with iron-like fingers.
Her arm and shoulder muscles flexed and tensed, channeling explosive power!
“Crack—Bang!”
The old wooden door, already fragile from years of use, snapped at the hinges under her brute force!
The whole door was torn from the frame, wood splinters flying, and she tossed it aside with a loud crash.
“You…”
Yamada, hair in disarray and clothes a mess, was terrified by the sudden intrusion. She turned in shock, her face still flushed with drunkenness and violence.
But before she could finish a single threat, a bony fist—driven by a gust of fierce wind—rushed at her blurred vision, aiming straight for her face with unstoppable force!
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.