Part 32: Reality
Two weeks later things are just like they always have been. Anya goes to the studio, to dance practices and when she gets home, Kyun is there—when he hasn't already joined her at work the whole day. Between all that she sleeps with men to get this deal done. She still loves having Kyun around and at the same time, she hates it. Because every minute she spends with him without actually being his is torture.
Neither of them have brought up the kiss from that night. Of course not. For him it was nothing and she isn't so stupid to give him a chance to explain to her why it was nothing.
On this Tuesday she gets up early to get some work done and has just walked into the kitchen to make herself a little breakfast when her phone rings. She glances at the name on the screen.
Taryn.
"Hey kiddo!" she says into her phone and looks at Kyun, who is hanging out on the couch lazily, snacking on a peach.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" Taryn says joyfully and Anya grins.
"Happy Valentine's Day to you too! Did you get my flowers?"
Her sister shrieks. "Yes! That's why I'm calling. My future partner will have it so hard competing with your ridiculously huge bouquets!"
"That's the mission!" Anya laughs while filling a bowl with yogurt. "I'm glad you liked them!"
They stick to a little small talk when Taryn suddenly begins to stammer. "Um...Anya, can I talk to you about something?"
"Sure!"
"First of all!" she chuckles. "I saw the pictures of you at that charity event! Nice catch with your boyfie. I thought you weren't dating?"
"We aren't dating!" Again she rolls her eyes, exasperated by the number of times she's said those words since the event. "We're just friends!"
Kyun snickers.
For a moment there's silence on the other line until Taryn clears her throat. "Okay, it's probably better this way. I'm not sure how he would react if he finds out that you slept with Kihyun while you were here!"
Anya can't help but laugh out loud. As if Kyun actually cares. The demon turns his head to her at the sound of her sudden laughter and she smirks at him.
"She just tried to make you jealous by mentioning that I slept with some dude over Christmas!"
The demon's eyes narrow and he scoffs. "Yeah... Nice try!"
Okay, is she reading too much into his expression or is there some real anger lurking behind his dismissiveness?
"Yeah! You aren't dating...that's why he's at your house this early in the morning?!" Taryn snickers.
"What's up?" Anya asks again, ignoring her comment.
"Okay!" Her sister seems very excited about whatever she has to tell her. "I talked to Kihyun..."
"Is that so?" she asks, walks over to Kyun, and takes the peach out of his hand despite his protest. Ignoring his whine, she walks back to the counter and cuts the bitten fruit into slices for her bowl. It's the last one.
"Listen..." Taryn says. "back in high school when he rejected you. You didn't talk to him in person, right? You never actually heard him saying that he would 'never date your ugly ass even if you were the last person on earth' and all this other horrible stuff, right?"
She groans. She has no idea what this is about, and can't believe her sister is wasting her time with this bullshit now.
"Of course not!" She shakes her head, irritated. "This was high school!" As if anyone ever spoke to someone else in person. There were always third parties involved. But what Ki said didn't surprise her. It fit his entire attitude, and she's always been into jerks.
"Yeah" Taryn mumbles. "Do me a favor, Anya, and try to remember who told you what he allegedly said..."
Groaning, she throws her head back. That was such a long time ago. She really doesn't wanna think about this again!
"It was—"
Suddenly Anya feels like someone kicked her in the stomach and her head snaps over to Kyun, who's been looking at her the whole time, probably interested in this tea.
"It was Henry!"
The second she says her ex's name, Kyun gets up and walks over to her.
"B-but I don't get it" she stammers, her eyes still fixed on Kyun, unable to form a clear thought. Her hand clutches the phone so hard her knuckles hurt. "Why would he—"
"It was Henry, Anya!" Taryn scoffs. "Are you really surprised? The fact that he used you for our parent's money wasn't even half of it. He pretended to be your friend and manipulated you in a way that completely destroyed your confidence. That way, it was so easy for you to believe what he said, to believe that Ki really said this kind of stuff about you. But Ki had no idea! I asked him and he was shocked, Anya! He asked me to call you and tell you that he never meant to make you feel—"
While her sister speaks, Anya feels tears filling her eyes and Kyun takes another step closer, laying his hand on her lower back.
"I gotta hang up, Taryn," she interrupts her sister in a shaky voice. "I have practice!"
One good thing about being a celeb: Everyone always believes her when she says she's busy.
"Oh, okay..." her sister replies, confused about the way she cut her off. "Please call me later okay? Love ya!"
"Love you too..." she whispers, staring into a void, and hangs up.
She can't believe it. Henry knew. He knew how much she liked Ki and he'd sabotaged it, with her fragile teenage self-esteem as the collateral damage. She can't believe that she'd been manipulated by him for so damn long. She thought his fake love was the only thing but that was only the tip of the iceberg.
"Babygirl, what's wrong?" Kyun whispers next to her and pulls her hair over her shoulder to see her face.
Gulping, she turns her head to him. "Kihyun!"
"Who?"
She groans. "The dude I slept with over Christmas! The unfinished business! For years I thought he'd hurt me deeply but it wasn't true! It was Henry telling me all these lies!"
Anya can't breathe. She can't think. Why, after so many years, can't she just finally find closure from this dude? Why won't the memory of him let her go?
Kyun tilts his head, confused. "So?"
"So?" she asks in disbelief. "Kyun, I made him sign the contract! I've slept with him! He's going to hell because of me!"
The demon stares at her blankly, as if still waiting for her to get to the point. He doesn't get it. At all. And she's not even surprised. Anya never sees any compassion from him when it comes to her victims.
"Why is he so different from the other thirty-two dudes?"
"Because I know him!" she yells, desperate to make him understand.
The only thing that somehow made her okay with consigning fifty people to hell is the fact that these dudes are complete strangers. She won't know when they all die in three months. She won't know about it. But when it comes to Ki, she will know! Everyone will call her and ask if she heard about Ki's passing and she will be the one responsible for that!
God, she'd felt so much power controlling him. Felt so powerful deciding his fate.
How could she turn into this kind of person?
Kyun sighs and leans against the counter. "I'm sorry, babygirl, but I still don't get it!"
"Yeah, of course you don't!"
This is one of those moments when Anya feels bad for snapping at Kyun. It's not his fault that her human feelings are too complicated for him to grasp. Just like she just can't grasp hell.
With a huge lump in her throat, she grabs her bag and keys and walks over to the door. She can't be here right now. She can't breathe.
"Where are you going?" Kyun's call echoes over to her.
"Dance practice!" she snaps without turning around. "I need to think!"
Out of breath, Anya lays on the floor in her practice room and stares at the ceiling. Her hand on the remote stops the music and she remains there in silence.
For three hours now she's been dancing, trying to get her mind off of things. For the first time, she's actually feeling the consequences of her actions.
What worries her more is that she keeps on telling herself "better him than you"— and yeah, that's the reason she did this in the first place. But why did she have to sleep with him? Everyone else would've been fine. Why Kihyun? Why was she so driven by revenge in that moment? After all, she barely wasted a thought on him the past years.
Suddenly, when it's someone she knew since before his voice cracked, "better him than you" sounds like such a selfish and flimsy excuse.
Why is she like this?
Anya flinches when the door suddenly opens. She tilts her sweaty head to look at the intruder who dares disturb her in her suffering.
"Get up!" Hyungwon, one of her dancers, says in a soft voice and passes her to get to the computer.
With furrowed brows, she sits up. "What's wrong?"
"Luke sprained his ankle!" he says, his eyes fixed on the computer. "I'm doing 'Dancing With The Devil' with you on Friday!"
Her jaw drops. "Fuck..."
Hyungwon walks up to her, takes the remote out of her hand, and replaces it with her microphone.
"Hyungwon, not today okay?" She sighs and sits up. "I wanna be alone..."
She really can't stand this today. She still has time to practice tomorrow and the day after. She can't focus right now.
Seems like he was so in his own world, that he didn't notice Anya's fragile state. At the sight of her, he tilts his head and looks at her with soft eyes. "What's wrong?"
If only she could tell him the truth, if only she could tell anyone and they could understand what's bothering her.
"Nothing!" she mumbles. "It's just... I'm not feeling well..."
Hyungwon crouches down to her. "I'm sorry... but this show on Friday is important. Let's do this real quick and then you can go back to—" he looks around in the room, "—whatever you were doing here, okay?"
For a long moment she looks at him.
He's right. She's a professional. She should start acting this way. So she nods and lets him pull her to her feet.
"You know the steps?" Their eyes meet in the mirror and Hyungwon nods.
"Don't worry..."
Out of all her dancers, Hyungwon has always been the most talented—and the one she has the worst relationship with. It's not that she hates him. Of course not. But he's always the least accessible. When they go out together as a team he barely joins and if he does, he mostly stays for one drink only, even though she knows he can handle much more. When she and the dancers are having fun and fooling around instead of practicing, he's the one most likely to get annoyed about it.
And maybe...just maybe she holds this little grudge against him because he's attractive as fuck and no matter how hard she tries, he doesn't seem to fall for her tricks.
As usual, it's her ego.
That very ego that will kill Kihyun...
But yes, she's a little annoyed that it's him that will do this dance with her because this choreography isn't about talent. It's about chemistry. This part of the dance shows a relationship between two lovers, two passionate lovers. You can't force this kind of chemistry.
And Anya definitely has this kind of chemistry with Luke. So much that her fans have shipped them ever since their first performance together. It will never work out like this with Hyungwon. And her fans will be disappointed about that...
But she figures she has no other choice. Because skipping her breakthrough song won't happen, under any circumstances.
Hyungwon points the remote towards the computer and "Dancing with the Devil" fills the room.
She's kind of sick hearing this song by now. But performing it is always different. Her body almost begins to move by itself, already so used to the dance routine, while Hyungwon observes her, his arms crossed, his gaze focused.
Somehow she feels a little restless performing alone in front of him. Because he doesn't sugar-coat things. She already knows that once she's done here, she'll get a list of all the stuff he wants her to do better. Not because he wants to torture her, but because he wants her to be perfect. Still this makes her nervous.
He follows the steps lazily up to the main part, which she performs with all her backup dancers. After all, he's been dancing them for months and doesn't need much practice.
Slowly she feels her body tensing as the duet comes closer. The music stops before a hard beat drops and she stands there, her face lowered, waiting for Hyungwon to approach her.
And he does.
He turns her and pulls her to his body.
What she sees in his eyes the moment he does so startles her. It's almost as if someone flipped a switch in him. His eyes are so dark and reflect nothing but pure desire. And the way his hand lays on her cheek and his eyes observe her face make her weak.
Damn!
He makes her lean back and his hand lifts her leg. Seductively, she twists her head, lets her long hair swing while her body rolls against his. In unison with the beat, he pulls her back up and makes her spin a pirouette before lifting her and she wraps her legs around his hips. Again she lets herself fall back, her hands touch the ground and Hyungwon slowly lowers her body to the floor, before reaching her level with a body roll, and laying between her legs.
Anya almost forgets her own movements, so mesmerized, so distracted by the way he looks at her, by the way he moves with her.
She misjudged him...
Tilting her head, Hyungwon's lips roam close to the skin of her neck while his hands grab her arms to lay them around his broad shoulders. When she looks back at him, his eyes light up with arousal. Smiling, she turns him on his back, straddles him and performs the song while grinding her body against his. Then she leans closer and looks deep into his eyes. His hands roam over her ass and hips and she almost loses her composure. Luke never made her feel like this; it's as if Hyungwon is fucking her with his eyes. She rolls off of him, lands on all fours, and Hyungwon pulls her up by her throat from behind and his hand wanders over her boobs, stomach, and thighs.
"You're not supposed to actually grind your body against mine!" he whispers into her ear and she chuckles.
"And you shouldn't touch my boobs like that and yet here we are..." she replies, out of breath.
Abruptly he stops and their eyes meet in the mirror. He observes her face carefully as she suddenly feels him grinding his hard crotch against her ass.
Look what we have here...
"Now that's really not in the choreography," she says in a low voice and smirks at him.
"Thought I might try some freestyle!"
Anya's grin becomes wider. "You should hide that boner on stage! I thought you're a professional..."
"Everyone has a weak spot," he whispers into her ear and pulls her hair over her shoulder. "And you happen to be mine..."
Gulping, she looks at him.
She can't believe it. It's not that he never wanted her. Maybe he just wanted her too much...
And it makes perfect sense that this would make him reluctant. He's super professional. And the lust for her and how much this distracts him seems to have frustrated him.
Huh.
Seems like they have more in common than she thought. "Maybe we should take care of it before our performance," she breathes, still looking into his eyes through the mirror. "You know, just to make sure. We don't want my fans to feel uncomfortable, do we?"
Hyungwon's gaze darkens and he turns her around. "Kitten..."
"Kiss me!" Anya whispers, and his eyes run over her features, searching for any sign of hesitation.
He finds none. So he leans in and lays his plump lips on hers. A little surprised at the hunger in his kiss, her eyes widen, until she shuts them, smirking against his lips. The way his tongue immediately dives into her mouth proves his eagerness. And she loves this feeling, loves to make him weak.
With a loud thud, her microphone falls to the ground when she lets it slip out of her hands. They both couldn't care less.
Ten minutes ago she was devastated about this entire Kihyun situation. She can't believe her lust has so much power over her. In the end, she's not better than Kyun is; the demon actually might have more self-control than her.
But it's no secret that she uses sex as a coping mechanism. Sex has always helped her to calm down, to clear her head...
Her head could really use some clearing right now. And no one can blame her for wanting to get fucked by this masterpiece of a human being.
This isn't for the deal. This is sex because she wants to have sex. This is sex because she needs sex. No NDA, no consequences with hell. Just two people wanting each other...