Chapter 2: Snacks and a Secret
The kitchen floor was cold against Kyujin’s thighs, a sharp contrast to the warmth of Kim’s shoulder pressed against hers. Behind the marble island, they were a hidden council of two, the bag of shrimp chips between them crackling with every stealthy grab. The mansion above them was a tomb of hungover regret and simmering fury, but down here, the hum of the overworked fridge was the loudest sound.
“Do you think he’s still here?” Kyujin whispered, dusting orange powder from her fingers.
“Seita? God, no. He slithered out the back at like 4 AM. I heard the gate click.” Kim’s eyes were bright with the thrill of it. “Ahyeon’s been in the sauna crying since dawn. Paan’s… actually, where is Paan?”
“Locked in her room, probably feeling like a champion.”
“Or an idiot.” Kim snorted. “Strategic? Maybe. Brutal? Absolutely.”
Kyujin’s phone buzzed on the tile. A text lit up the screen. Kim’s hand was a flash, snatching it before Kyujin could react.
“Hey!”
“‘Babe, you up?’” Kim read aloud, her voice pitching into a cartoonish, needy whine. She fanned herself dramatically. “The desperate thirst at 10 a.m. on a Wednesday. It’s tragic.”
Kyujin grabbed for the phone, laughing. “Shut up, he’s just checking in.”
“He’s checking if you’re still conscious after the national scandal you witnessed. Which, fair.” Kim relinquished the phone, her smile softening. “You okay, though? That was… intense.”
Before Kyujin could answer, a shadow fell over them. They looked up, their laughter dying in their throats.
Sieun leaned against the countertop, sipping black coffee from a mug that said ‘BOSS’ in ugly, glittering script. She’d clearly been there, listening. A smirk played on her perfectly lined lips. “Plotting your next move?” she asked, her voice like honey over ground glass. “Or just hiding from the drama you’re too scared to start yourselves?”
Kim’s hand slid from the chip bag and landed on Kyujin’s knee, a silent squeeze. Steady.
“We’re eating breakfast,” Kyujin said, her voice flat. “It’s called a meal. You should try one. Might improve your mood.”
Sieun’s smirk didn’t waver. She took a slow, deliberate sip, her eyes assessing them like specimens. “Cute. A little defensive, but cute.” She pushed off the counter. “I just find it interesting. The biggest bomb this place has ever seen goes off, and the two of you are camped out on the floor like kids at a sleepover. No opinions? No take? Or are you just Sakura’s puppies, waiting for her to tell you what to think?”
Kim stood up in one fluid motion, brushing crumbs from her sweats. “Our take is it’s messy as hell and none of our business. Unlike some people, we don’t get off on other people’s pain.”
“Everyone gets off on something, sweetheart.” Sieun’s gaze drifted past them, out the kitchen’s French doors to the patio. Her expression shifted, the performative malice smoothing into something more focused, more hungry.
Gunil was outside, alone, talking on his phone. The morning sun glinted off his dark hair. He paced the length of the pool, his free hand gesturing sharply. He looked irritated, powerful, isolated.
Sieun watched him. It wasn’t a glance. It was a consumption.
Kim and Kyujin exchanged a look. The air in the kitchen thickened.
“You’re playing with fire,” Kyujin said quietly, rising to stand beside Kim.
Sieun finally dragged her eyes away from the window. The smirk was back, wider now, edged with a thrilling danger. “Fire is the only thing that keeps this icebox warm.” She set her mug down with a definitive click. “Enjoy your chips.”
She left the kitchen, not toward the stairs, but toward the patio door.
“Oh, fuck no,” Kim breathed.
They watched, frozen, as Sieun pushed the door open. They saw Gunil turn, saw him end his call. Saw Sieun say something, her head tilting, a hand tucking her hair behind her ear. A classic, predatory gesture. He shook his head, gesturing back toward the house. She stepped closer, laughing at something, her hand coming up to lightly touch his forearm. A claim.
Kyujin looked away, a sour taste in her mouth. “We should tell Sakura.”
“And say what?” Kim muttered, pulling her friend toward the hallway, away from the wretched view. “That her husband’s talking to a snake? She already knows. This is just… the snake showing its fangs.”
The encounter outside had been a catalyst. A dare. Sieun felt it buzzing in her blood all afternoon, a low-grade static. Gunil had been polite, firm, distant. He’d removed her hand from his arm like it was a piece of lint. The rejection should have stung. Instead, it ignited something stubborn and ravenous in her gut. She wanted to crack that polite shell. She wanted to see the man underneath the producer, the husband. She wanted to prove he wanted it, too.
The house was fracturing along predictable lines. Ahyeon and Paan were orbiting each other in silent, deadly loops, conversations dying when one entered a room. Sakura’s circle had commandeered the living room, a fortress of solidarity. Hinata was holding court on the sun porch, dissecting Paan’s audacity with relish.
Sieun bided her time. She showered, dressed with deliberate care—a simple black tank top, soft cotton shorts that showed the length of her thighs. No obvious makeup. Just the scent of her skin, clean and warm.
She knew his schedule. Knew he did a final perimeter check of the empty production offices on the mansion’s east wing after dinner, when the crew was at their hotel. It was the only time he was truly alone.
The hallway to the offices was dark, lit only by emergency exit signs. The carpet muffled her footsteps. She found the door ajar, a sliver of yellow light cutting across the floor.
She pushed it open without knocking.
Gunil was at a desk, his back to her, reviewing footage on a monitor. The room was small, cluttered with cables and hard drives. It smelled of plastic and stale coffee.
“You need something?” he asked, not turning around. He’d seen her reflection in the dark monitor.
“I think you do.” Sieun closed the door. The click of the latch was incredibly loud. She leaned against it, trapping them both inside.
He finally swiveled in his chair. His face was all hard lines in the blue monitor light. Irritation. “Sieun. This isn’t appropriate. You need to leave.”
“Why? Because Sakura would hate it?” She took a step forward, then another, until she was standing between his spread knees. She placed her hands on the arms of his chair, caging him in. “Or because you’re afraid you’ll like it?”
“Get the hell away from me.” His voice was a low growl, but he didn’t push her back. He didn’t move.
She leaned down, bringing her mouth inches from his. Her perfume was subtle, just the smell of her hair, her breath. “You watched me all night at the club last week. Don’t pretend you didn’t. I felt it.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Am I?” Her hand left the chair and drifted down, her fingertips brushing over the front of his pants. He was soft. She pressed her palm flat against him, feeling the shape of him through the fabric. “Then this is just a coincidence?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He said nothing, but beneath her hand, she felt a slow, undeniable thickening. A betraying heat. A pulse of life.
A savage triumph shot through her. Yes.
“See?” she whispered, her lips grazing his ear. “Your body’s honest even if you’re not.” Her fingers worked his belt buckle open, the metal clinking softly in the quiet room. He didn’t stop her. He watched her, his breathing shallow, his eyes black with a conflict she was determined to win.
She unzipped his jeans and plunged her hand inside. He was half-hard, growing rapidly in the warm confines of his boxers. She wrapped her fingers around him, squeezing, feeling him jerk in her grip. He was thick, a solid weight in her palm. She leaned down further, her tank top gaping, and took his lower lip between her teeth, biting just enough to sting.
He groaned, a raw, torn sound, and his resolve shattered.
His hands came up, not to push her away, but to grip her hips, digging in. He yanked her forward, pulling her onto his lap so she was straddling him. The chair squeaked in protest. His mouth crashed onto hers, this kiss nothing like the controlled peck he gave Sakura on camera. It was all tongue and teeth and frantic, hungry noise.
She ground down against the hard ridge of his cock, still confined by his clothes. “Fuck, you want it so bad,” she panted against his mouth, her own hands pulling at his shirt, desperate for skin. “You want to fuck me right here, don’t you? In your wife’s house.”
“Shut up,” he snarled, but he was helping her, pulling his shirt over his head. His chest was solid, defined. She scraped her nails down it, leaving faint red trails.
“Make me.”
In one brutal motion, he stood up, lifting her with him. He spun and dumped her onto the cluttered desk. Monitors wobbled. A stack of papers fluttered to the floor. He shoved her shorts and underwear down her legs in one rough tug, discarding them somewhere in the dark. The air was cool on her exposed skin.
He freed himself from his jeans, his cock springing out, fully erect now, veined and angry-looking in the dim light. He didn’t wait, didn’t tease. He shoved her thighs apart, his fingers biting into her flesh, and drove into her with one deep, unyielding thrust.
Sieun cried out, a sharp, guttural sound that echoed off the soundproof walls. He filled her completely, a burning, delicious stretch. There was no tenderness, no pretense. This was pure, adversarial fucking.
He set a relentless, punishing rhythm, pounding into her, his hips slamming against hers. The desk shuddered with every impact. She wrapped her legs around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back, pulling him deeper, meeting each thrust with a roll of her own hips.
“Is this what you wanted?” he gritted out, his face a mask of furious pleasure. He hooked an arm under her knee, pushing it back toward her shoulder, opening her wider, changing the angle. The head of his cock dragged against a spot inside her that made her vision whiten. “You wanted to be a cheap fuck on a desk?”
“Yes!” she screamed, the word tearing from her throat. Her nails raked down his back, feeling the muscles cord and release. “God, yes, you feel so fucking good. Better than her?”
He didn’t answer. He just fucked her harder, his pace becoming erratic, desperate. One of his hands left her hip and fisted in her hair, yanking her head back. The pain was exquisite, a bright counterpoint to the deep, grinding pleasure coiling in her core.
She was close, so close, the tension a tight knot about to snap. “Come in me,” she demanded, her voice hoarse and broken. “Do it. Mark it. This is mine now.”
With a final, ragged groan that was half agony, half release, he obeyed. He plunged deep and held there, his body shuddering as he emptied himself inside her in hot, pulsing waves. The feeling of it, the utter vulgarity of the act, triggered her own orgasm. It ripped through her, violent and convulsing, her inner muscles clenching around him, milking him dry as she choked on her own cries.
For a long moment, the only sounds were their ragged gasps and the hum of computer fans. The smell of sex and sweat was thick in the cramped room.
He pulled out of her abruptly, the loss of him making her feel suddenly, terribly empty. He turned away, fumbling for his clothes, his back to her. She slid off the desk, her legs unsteady. She found her shorts, pulled them on. The damp, aching warmth between her thighs was a testament.
He was zipping his jeans when she approached him from behind. She wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against his sweaty back. “You’ll think about that every time you look at her,” she whispered.
He stiffened. Then his hands came up, not to hold hers, but to pry her fingers loose. He peeled her off him. When he turned, his face was closed, shuttered. The man who had just fucked her into the desk was gone. “Get out.”
She smiled, a slow, satisfied curl of her lips. She picked up a hair elastic from the desk—hers, blonde, unmistakable—and let it drop conspicuously next to the keyboard. A flag planted.
“See you around, Gunil.”
She left the office, walking on shaky legs down the dark hall. The house was quiet. From the living room, she could hear the murmur of Sakura’s voice, clear and commanding.
Sieun’s smile widened. She touched her swollen lips. The game had just changed. The board was hers. And the bloom of satisfaction in her chest was a dark, intoxicating flower.
And the bloom of satisfaction in her chest was a dark, intoxicating flower.
It wilted an hour later, poisoned from the inside.
Gunil found her by the pool, where she was pretending to read a magazine. His footsteps were heavy, unbalanced. She looked up, a smirk already forming, but it died on her lips. His face was the color of chalk. Sweat beaded along his hairline, slicking down his temples. His pupils were vast, black pools swallowing the brown of his irises.
“What did you do?” The words slithered out between clenched teeth. He braced a hand on the back of her lounge chair. The metal frame groaned.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She kept her voice light, but her spine went rigid. This wasn’t part of the script. This was supposed to be about secret power, not this public, physical unraveling.
His breath hitched. A visible tremor ran through his shoulders. “You… fucking bitch. You put something in my drink. In the office.”
Sieun’s laugh was brittle glass. “You were plenty willing without any help. Don’t be a sore loser.” But her mind raced. The water glass on his desk. She’d touched it, leaned over it while he was turned. A practiced, invisible flick of a finger. Just insurance. Just to make sure he was… pliable. To loosen his stubborn morality.
He doubled over, a hand clamping over his mouth. A guttural, wet sound erupted from him. It wasn’t a sound of passion. It was the sound of a body rebelling.
He didn’t make it to the bushes. Hot, sour vomit splashed onto the pristine concrete beside her chair, spraying her ankle. She jerked her foot back with a gasp. The smell was acidic, vicious, cutting through the chlorine air. He retched again, strings of saliva and bile connecting his lips to the puddle now steaming between them.
“Oh my God!” The shriek came from the patio door. Miihi stood frozen, a bowl of fruit in her hands. Her eyes were huge. “Gunil!”
The commotion was a siren. Feet pounded. Sakura appeared first, a flash of fury and fear. She skidded to a halt, taking in the scene: her husband on his hands and knees, heaving, and Sieun sitting frozen beside the mess, disgust etched on her face.
Sakura didn’t go to him. She stepped toward Sieun. Her movement was quiet, lethal. “What did you do to him?”
“I didn’t do anything!” Sieun stood up, her chair scraping loudly. “He’s obviously sick. Or drunk. He came out here and just started puking!”
Gunil wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, shuddering. He tried to speak, but another dry heave wracked him. He looked up at Sakura, his eyes swimming with confusion and a dawning, ugly horror. “She… she was in the office. My water…”
The implication hung in the air, thicker than the stench of vomit.
Hinata pushed through the growing crowd, kneeling beside Gunil with a protective snarl. “Someone call a medic! What the hell is wrong with all of you?” She glared at Sakura, then at Sieun. Her loyalty was a blunt, immediate weapon.
Kyujin and Kim hovered near the back, their earlier kitchen gossip now a monstrous reality. Kyujin met Sieun’s gaze across the chaos. Her expression wasn’t shocked. It was a flat, grim understanding. You did this.
Bae emerged, phone to her ear, her voice steady as she spoke to a production medic. Sangah arrived with a wet towel, but Sakura took it from her, finally moving to kneel by her husband. She dabbed his face, her hands gentle, but her eyes were on Sieun. They were promises of annihilation.
“He needs to go to the hospital,” Bae said, hanging up. “They’re sending a car. Now.”
The collective gaze swung back to Sieun. She was an island in a suddenly hostile sea. Her composure was cracking, fine hairline fractures spreading. “This is insane. He’s sick. I’m being framed.”
“No one said anything about you yet,” Sakura replied, her voice so cold it seemed to freeze the humid air. She helped Gunil to his feet. He leaned on her, his body still trembling. “But you just did.”
As they shuffled inside, Gunil looked back over his shoulder. His glassy eyes found Sieun’s. In them, the last vestiges of whatever had passed between them in the office—the furious heat, the tangled shame—were gone. Replaced by a pure, undiluted loathing. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but his stomach convulsed again. He turned away, a fresh wave of nausea drowning any words.
Sieun stood alone by the fouled pool. The sun beat down. The evidence at her feet was viscous, undeniable. Hinata stayed behind, placing a firm hand on her arm. “We need to talk. Now.”
But the story was already writing itself, faster than any lie she could spin. It was in the vomit on the concrete. It was in the hair elastic on the desk. It was in the terrified, knowing look Kyujin shot Kim as they turned away, whispering two words that would become the house’s new truth.
“She drugged him.”
The whispered words spread, a toxic vapor leaking under doors and curling around the women now frozen in the mansion’s arteries. “She drugged him.” It was in the way Bae silently took the fruit bowl from Miihi’s trembling hands. It was in the sharp, decisive click of Sangah locking the patio door as if sealing a crime scene. The humid afternoon air curdled, holding its breath.
Sieun yanked her arm from Hinata’s grip. “We need to get inside. Now.” Her voice was a tight wire, all earlier smugness vaporized by the palpable shift. She could feel their eyes like physical weights.
“What did you do, Sieun?” Hinata’s question was low, for her alone, but her gaze was scanning the windows where silhouettes lingered. “Tell me it’s not what it looks like.”
“He’s sick! He’s a fucking grown man who can’t handle his liquor!” The defense sounded shrill, pathetic, even to her own ears. She started walking, her sandals slapping against the concrete, fleeing the sour, incriminating puddle.
Inside, the great foyer was a silent tribunal. Kyujin and Kim were perched on the spiral staircase, witnesses from a higher vantage. Nayoung stood by the grandfather clock, her warm eyes now cold and assessing. Ella and Ruka lingered near the kitchen archway, arms crossed, saying nothing. The only sound was the distant slamming of a car door—Gunil being taken away.
Sakura was not in the foyer. Her absence was more terrifying than her presence.
“Everyone, just back the fuck up,” Hinata snapped, putting her body slightly in front of Sieun’s, a barrier. “No one knows anything.”
“We know he was fine before he was alone with her,” Sangah stated flatly from the living room threshold. She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. “We know he got violently ill immediately after. That’s a timeline. Not gossip.”
Sieun pushed past Hinata, heading for the stairs. She needed a shower. She needed to scrub the smell of his sweat and that acidic vomit from her skin. She needed to think.
“Where do you think you’re going?” The voice came from above.
Sakura stood at the top of the first landing. She had changed clothes. Black jeans, a tight black tank. Her hair was pulled back so severely it stretched the skin around her eyes. She held something small and blonde pinched between her thumb and forefinger. The hair elastic.
Time slowed, syrup-thick and deadly.
“Found this,” Sakura said, her voice carrying in the cavernous quiet. “In my husband’s private office. On his desk.” She descended one step, then another. The click of her heel on each marble tread was a measured countdown. “It’s not mine.”
Sieun’s hand flew to her own hair, a useless, telling gesture. “So? The crew uses that room. Anyone could have—”
“The crew left hours ago. The door was locked. Gunil has the only key.” Sakura reached the bottom of the stairs. The space between them was ten feet of charged air. “He was the only one supposed to be in there.” She stopped, her gaze a physical blow. “Until you.”
The foyer was a holding cell. No one moved. No one breathed.
“You’re accusing me of what, exactly?” Sieun forced a laugh, but it cracked. “Stealing a hair tie? Get over yourself.”
Sakura didn’t blink. “I’m accusing you of being a desperate, pathetic whore who couldn’t get his attention sober, so you slipped something into his water.” She took a step forward. “I’m accusing you of touching what’s mine. And I’m accusing you of making him sick enough to need a stomach pump. That’s what the medic just told me. They’re pumping his stomach, Sieun.”
A collective, sharp inhale echoed in the space.
Hinata stepped forward. “Sakura, you can’t just—”
“Stay out of this, Hinata.” Sakura didn’t even look at her. Her entire world had narrowed to the woman in front of her. “This is between me and the bitch who tried to poison my husband to get his dick wet.”
The crude, brutal words hung there, stripping away all pretense.
Sieun’s composure shattered. “He wanted it! He was hard for me before he ever took a sip of water! Ask him! He fucking ached for it. You think that marriage is so perfect? He buried himself inside me like he was trying to forget your name!”
The silence that followed was absolute. A vacuum.
Sakura moved.
It wasn’t a rush; it was an inevitable convergence. She closed the distance in three swift strides. Her hand shot out, not to slap, but to fist in the front of Sieun’s tank top, yanking her forward until their faces were inches apart. Sieun gasped, her hands coming up to claw at Sakura’s wrist.
“You think that’s a victory?” Sakura’s whisper was venomous, intimate. “You think feeling him fuck you in a dirty office while he was out of his mind is a prize? You’re a receptacle. A warm, willing hole. That’s all you were to him.”
“Fuck you!” Sieun spat, struggling.
“He’ll remember the nausea. The humiliation. The taste of bile. He’ll remember my face when he woke up in that car. He will never remember the feel of you.” Sakura shoved her backward.
Sieun stumbled, catching herself on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. Her chest heaved. Rage, hot and blinding, washed over the fear. “You stupid cunt. You have no idea what he really wants. You’re just convenient. A prop. I saw the relief on his face when he thought no one was watching. The relief to be away from your controlling bullshit.”
Sakura’s laugh was a short, brittle sound. “And you were what? Freedom? You were a mistake his body made while his brain was offline. A chemical error.” She looked Sieun up and down, a scathing inventory. “You reek of him. And you reek of cheap decisions. That’s your scent now. Desperation and vomit.”
“At least I have his scent on me!” Sieun screamed, her voice raw. “When’s the last time he fucked you like that? When’s the last time he couldn’t control it? Has he ever? Or does he just perform for the camera, for the perfect ‘power couple’ narrative?”
Something in Sakura’s face shifted. A fault line exposed. It was there for only a fraction of a second—a flicker of a deeply personal, agonizing doubt—before it solidified into something even more dangerous.
Hinata moved between them again, hands up. “This is done! Sieun, come to our room. Now. Sakura, back the hell off.”
Sakura’s eyes slid to Hinata. “You defend this? After what she’s done? You’re just as sick.”
“I defend my friend against a mob,” Hinata fired back. “We don’t have proof of anything except that he’s sick and you’re jealous.”
“Jealous?” Sakura’s smile was ghastly. “Of what? A predatory, attempted assault? Watch your own back, Hinata. Loyalty to a snake means you’re sleeping in the nest with one.”
She turned her attention back to Sieun, who was now leaning heavily on the banister, the fight draining into a shaky, post-adrenaline slump. Sakura took one final, slow step closer. Her voice dropped, becoming almost conversational, which was worse than any shout.
“The house will vote. And you will be gone. But before you are, I want you to understand something. You are nothing. A smudge. An ugly, forgettable stain. What you did in that office was the most significant thing you’ll ever accomplish here, and it will only ever be remembered as a crime. You’re not a rival. You’re a cautionary tale.”
She turned on her heel and walked away, not toward the stairs, but down the hall leading to the bedrooms, her departure as commanding as her arrival.
The spell broke. Muttered conversations erupted. Nayoung went to the kitchen. Bae followed Sakura. The audience dispersed, leaving Sieun slumped against the wood, Hinata trying to shield her from the retreating, judgmental glances.
Kyujin, still on the stairs, looked down at Sieun. There was no triumph in her gaze. Just a distant, chilled pity. She then looked at Kim and murmured, too low for anyone else to hear, but the shape of the words was clear.
“She’s finished.”
Upstairs, in the hall, Sakura paused outside the locked door of the room Sieun shared with Hinata. She pulled a key from her pocket—a master key, given to her by production for her designated “house leader” role. She slid it into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open.
The room was a mess of clothes and makeup. Sieun’s side was distinctly chaotic. Sakura’s eyes swept over it, methodical, cold. She walked to the bedside table. A tube of lipstick. A charging phone. A small, zippered cosmetics pouch.
She picked up the pouch. Unzipped it. Inside, among eyeliners and tampons, was a tiny, unlabeled plastic bottle with a dropper top. It was three-quarters full of a clear liquid.
Sakura held it up to the light from the window. She didn’t open it. She didn’t need to. She slipped the bottle into her own pocket, re-zipped the pouch, placed it back exactly as she found it.
She left the room, locking the door behind her. The evidence was now a cold, hard weight against her thigh. The confrontation was no longer just about words, or infidelity, or even the vomiting by the pool.
It was about proof.