A Soul Sold for a Hamburger
“Ahh, ah…!”
Geon-joo's eyes burned as he gazed up at the beautiful curve of her body. She looked for all the world like a taut bowstring, drawn to its very limit — and when the string finally reached the end of its pull, the tendons in the back of his hands, gripping her knees, stood out thick and hard. His cock, trapped and crushed inside her, twitched like a fish flung out of water.
Even through the condom, every movement came through vividly. The muscles of Ju-ri's cleft dimpled deep, and her face contorted.
Clear liquid spilled from her entrance, wetting her clitoris and her inner and outer lips alike, soaking all the way down to Geon-joo's pelvic bone.
“Hah…”
Ju-ri let out a trembling sigh. Her fingers, splayed against his stomach, twitched in fine spasms. The aftershocks of the orgasm that had swept through her whole body refused to die down. Her strength drained away and she swayed, until something firm pressed against the small of her back — Geon-joo, bracing her with one knee drawn up, breathing low.
Ju-ri leaned against his legs as though they were the back of a chair and let her languid body go slack.
“When did you start wearing glasses?”
The air was heavy and damp. Her voice, too, sounded thoroughly waterlogged.
“I got my first pair in my third year of middle school.”
There was a trace of steel in the low voice that answered. His voice got sexier. Wanting to hear more of it, Ju-ri tossed out another question.
“From studying too hard?”
“It's been bad since I was little.”
“Since you were little?”
“It was bad even in elementary school. If I sat in the back row, I couldn't read the board at all.”
“You got glasses pretty late for all that, didn't you? Your parents never said anything?”
“Glasses are expensive, you know. The worse your eyes get, the more they cost.”
Ju-ri gave a small nod.
A strange… sense of kinship.
It was a different situation, but she too had squinted through blurry vision until middle school, even after her elementary school teacher told her she needed glasses. Because there were always far more important things in her household than buying her a pair of glasses. Even buying the pork belly for that evening's dinner ranked above her eyesight.
The first thing the grown-up Ju-ri did with the money she'd saved from her part-time jobs was get laser vision correction.
“Did you have a girlfriend?”
Maybe that was a weird question.
To ask while still mounted on his cock.
“If a one-month thing counts as a girlfriend.”
“A month?”
“Three weeks, technically.”
“When was that?”
“Second year of middle school, I think. Around then.”
“Ah.”
Ju-ri let out a hum of understanding. Second year of middle school — that would have been before the glasses. If the first pair he'd ever worn was one of those thick bottle-cap lenses, winning anyone over on looks would not have come easy.
A three-week girlfriend in the second year of middle school.
Born-and-raised single, huh.
“How did you two get together?”
“She was in my class… she asked to meet the day we ran the three-legged race at the sports festival.”
“So you got confessed to. Must have felt nice.”
“Honestly, it was just awkward.”
“But you dated her, so you liked her, no?”
“…Not really.”
“Then why did you date her? Dying to try having a girlfriend?”
“No. There'd been girls who asked me out before her, too.”
“And?”
“I was busy studying. I had no room in my life for that kind of nonsense.”
“Hm… but this girl was different?”
“I honestly don't know why we're talking about this.”
“What, it's fun.”
“…If you're asking whether she was different from other girls our age, no — she was completely ordinary. I can't even remember what she looks like now. But…”
“But?”
“She said she'd give me a hamburger every day.”
Ju-ri blinked.
“A hamburger?”
Geon-joo hesitated before answering, then nodded.
“She was the daughter of the hamburger place in our neighborhood.”
“You dated your first girlfriend because she promised you hamburgers?”
“Do you need me to repeat it?”
“You sold your soul for a hamburger. What a lightweight you were as a kid.”
Geon-joo gave an awkward laugh.
“I was lighter than a hamburger.”
“……”
“It fizzled out. She was the one who called it off, too.”
“Why?”
“She said she'd fallen for someone else.”
“Must have been sad.”
Geon-joo looked at her with an odd expression. When his eyes seemed to ask what exactly was supposed to be sad about that, Ju-ri added:
“Losing the hamburgers.”
“Ah. Yeah, that was definitely a loss.”
Ju-ri snorted, screwing up her brows, and pushed herself upright. As his cock slid free, Geon-joo's stomach flinched. She shot a glance at the tattered condom clinging to him.
“Aren't you taking that off?”
At her gesture, Geon-joo eased the condom off, careful not to spill a drop of semen. Heavy even at a glance — a substantial volume. His glistening cock was still standing at full attention despite having come once already.
“Good stamina.”
Ju-ri turned away and shifted her wobbly legs off him. It hadn't felt like much at the time, but now that she had to move, she realized just how thoroughly drained she was.
A sticky wetness trickled down her thigh.
Digging through the bag she'd hung on the coat rack, Ju-ri pulled out her cigarette pack and lighter — then froze.
Should I even smoke in here?
She waved the pack at Geon-joo instead.
“I'll step out for a minute.”
“Just smoke here.”
“You said you hate cigarette smoke.”
“…I don't hate it that much.”
A transparent lie.
Ju-ri snorted and shook out a cigarette. Honestly, digging clothes out of the pile and going outside was a chore. All the more so with a body this boneless after the rough sex they'd just had.
Happy to take him up on his lie, she padded over to the wide leather sofa and cracked open the window beside it.
“Tell me if it gets too strong.”
That cold snap that swept in with early spring had been making the mornings and evenings bitter lately, and the breeze through the window carried a chill. Feeling the heat drain out of her fevered body, Ju-ri sank into the sofa and crossed her legs. She set the cigarette between her lips and flicked the lighter.
The tip flared cherry-red, then quickly blackened. She drew in deep, and a harsh wave of smoke slid down her throat. That destructive sensation of smoke searing her lungs — Ju-ri exhaled a long, lazy haaa, a thin gray stream curling out and dissolving into the air.
Ah. This is the stuff.
Her whole body felt unwound down to the last cell. She melted deep into the back of the sofa.
Without warning, her cheek stung. She turned her head slightly and found Geon-joo's eyes — he was sitting on the bed, staring at her. She pulled the corner of her mouth into a faint smirk.
“Does it smell?”
“…No.”
“Good. I thought you were staring because it reeked.”
“How long have you been smoking?”
“Hm.”
Ju-ri narrowed her eyes, dredging up the past.
“College.”
“……”
“Learned it at my part-time job. I started waitressing at a bar right after the college entrance exam. It was a pretty big place, lots of part-timers, and nearly all of them smoked.”
“…That's a relief.”
“What's a relief?”
“That you didn't start even younger.”
Ju-ri frowned.
“Why would that be a relief? Do I look like I've been smoking since I was ten?”
“…I just thought it wouldn't exactly surprise me.”
“Ha! I was a model student, actually. I studied hard. Wouldn't have made it into my company otherwise.”
Ju-ri stared down at the motel floor and drifted into thought.
Her dream, from childhood on, had been to land a job at a big corporation. Her parents never had money to spare, and whatever warmth they had left over for her was stretched even thinner. There was no money for workbooks of her own, so she'd erase and reuse other kids' castoffs, or buy her friends a plate of tteokbokki to beg their spares — they always had so many they were drowning in them.
If it looked like she wouldn't make it into a target university, she'd fully resolved to go to a vocational high school instead. Even then the goal was the same: a big company. A serf's life was fine, so long as it was a serf's life at a rich man's house — a production job at a major corporation meant, at the very least, she'd never go hungry.
She'd learned that a corporate production job was a good one from the older girl next door. The villa they lived in back then had a family of six in the neighboring unit, and the best-off person in that whole household was that unnie, working production for a major company.
“Your ash is about to fall.”
Ju-ri's eyes snapped open. At the end of her half-burned cigarette, the ash teetered precariously, ready to drop. She hurriedly tapped it into the ashtray.
“Want a drink?”
“Sure.”
Geon-joo took a can from the mini fridge and sat down in the chair across from her. His pants caught her eye. When did he put those on? Ju-ri smiled faintly, and Geon-joo gave her a puzzled look.
“Nothing. You're just funny to look at.”
“…You're the first person to ever call me funny.”
“You never heard it from your first love either?”
“My first love?”
“Your first girlfriend.”
“She wasn't my first love.”
Geon-joo's face crumpled at once. Ju-ri, who had picked the word first love precisely to provoke that reaction, settled into an easy smile.
Never thought I'd live to see the day that teasing Salty Geon was the fun part of my day.
Tap. She knocked the ash into the ashtray and set the filter back between her lips.