Pride Is a Luxury
Standing before the door adorned with classic colonial-style paneling, Jiyu drew a deep breath to steady herself. She filled her lungs as though preparing to plunge into deep water.
She had barely managed to break the surface, only to sink again. This time, she willingly let her limbs go slack and stopped struggling.
Hold on. Just think about surviving.
Jiyu repeated the weary mantra that had sustained her for the past two years.
Her mouth was dry, and she unconsciously moistened her lips. A faint strawberry scent rose from the cheap lip gloss.
She had been wearing the same lip gloss when she first kissed Hunter.
That innocent sweetness slid down her throat, leaving behind a bitter aftertaste. Something small and fragile, something she had desperately guarded in a corner of her heart, burned away until nothing remained but black ash.
Growing up was cruel.
“Even shy kids like you get better as they grow older. Introverts become more outspoken with age and stop feeling embarrassed all the time.”
Her mother used to say that to encourage her.
Her mother had been wrong.
Shyness did not simply disappear. Nor did someone suddenly become an extrovert merely because they had reached adulthood.
When faced with an extreme situation, survival demanded that you bury the emotion called shame somewhere deep inside yourself. You trembled inwardly while brazenly pretending on the outside that nothing was wrong.
All the while hoping that one day your senses would grow numb and your self-loathing would fade.
Unfortunately, Jiyu had not yet reached that point.
She slowly raised her hand and knocked lightly. The door was made of solid wood, and even the sound of her knuckles against it seemed refined.
‘Was that too quiet? It’s not even bedtime yet.’
She glanced around anxiously, afraid someone might hear and wake up, though it was already close to midnight. The main lights had all been turned off, and the wall sconces had been dimmed so low that the far end of the long hallway resembled the mouth of a cave.
She raised her hand to knock again just as familiar footsteps approached. The door opened quietly.
Deep blue eyes swept over her without the slightest trace of surprise.
He had apparently just finished showering. Half naked and wearing nothing but plaid lounge pants, Hunter brushed the wet hair dripping over his forehead back from his face.
Frowning faintly, he folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe. Bright light spilled from the room behind him, casting dark shadows across his face.
“Mother?”
His voice was blunt, but Jiyu caught the faint concern hidden beneath it.
Please don’t be kind to me. I have to use you again.
“She’s all right now. She was discharged this afternoon and went back to Brooklyn.”
He looked down at her for a moment, hesitated, then let out a short sigh and stepped aside.
“Come in.”
The living area and bedroom were divided by curtains rather than walls.
Because Hunter could not tolerate confined spaces, the room had been created by combining three rooms at the end of the hallway. Exposed ceiling pipes, original red-brick walls, and roughly finished furniture gave it the atmosphere of a fashionable downtown loft.
“You said we were breaking up. You made it sound as though you never wanted to see me again.”
His characteristically blunt words flew toward her like the point of an arrow and lodged deep.
She had promised herself over and over that she would not feel ashamed, yet heat still flooded her face.
“Why are you here? Do you have something else to say?”
He took a bottle of water from the refrigerator built into the bar in one corner of the living room. With a harsh twist that somehow sounded cruel, he unscrewed the cap and drained the entire bottle without taking his eyes off her.
Jiyu could not force her mouth to open. She swallowed dryly, squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them again.
“I… I need money.”
The previous summer, as soon as Hunter had legally become an adult, he had received a portion of the Hamilton family’s vast assets through a trust fund. To an ordinary person, the sum would have been nothing more than an impossibly long string of numbers, too enormous to comprehend as real money.
At last, breaking the silence that had seemed endless, he asked,
“How much?”
“A hundred thousand dollars.”
Surprise, suspicion, and anger.
A complex succession of emotions flashed across Hunter’s face as he stared at her.
Everyone claimed it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but Jiyu could read the feelings stirring in his eyes more keenly than anyone else. She had watched his moods since childhood until sensing them had become second nature.
“What do you need it for?”
“…Something urgent.”
Jiyu clenched her trembling hands into fists. There was nowhere left for her to retreat.
“If you’re asking to borrow money from me, tell me why.”
His low, subdued voice was unmistakably domineering.
“I’m not asking to borrow it. Just… give it to me.”
“…What?”
Hunter let out a disbelieving scoff. He glared at her for a long moment before speaking again.
“Explain it in a way that makes me understand why I should.”
“If you lend it to me, I won’t be able to pay you back anyway. You know that.”
“So?”
She swallowed hard.
“I’m not saying I’ll never repay you. Instead of money… I’ll give you whatever you want.”
“And you think you know what I want? You’ve got some nerve.”
He sneered.
“Why wouldn’t I know? You want to fuck me. You said kisses weren’t enough to make you win anymore. For all four years of college, I’ll be your jinx whenever you want.”
For years, whenever Hunter entered a tennis tournament, the good-luck ritual he had begged from her had been a kiss.
His eyes flared like blue fire.
Then he strode toward her, looming over her with such menace that Jiyu barely managed to suppress the urge to step back.
His jaw tightened as though he were grinding his teeth. He glared at her with a murderous expression, as if he wanted to wrap his hands around her throat.
“Do you even understand what you just said?”
She understood better than anyone.
Unable to meet his eyes, she lowered her head.
Hunter seized her chin and forced her face upward, making her look at him. Then, with brutal clarity, he made her confront the truth.
“Jiyu Parker. You just sold yourself to me for a hundred thousand dollars.”
She turned her gaze aside.
“Think whatever you want. This is the only way I can repay that much money right now. It’s not as if I…”
She bit down on her tongue before her true feelings could slip out.
She had finally made up her mind to leave for California and begin a new life, only to mortgage another four years of that life to Hunter.
“So a hundred thousand dollars was your price? If I’d known you could be bought with money, I would’ve said something sooner. I wouldn’t have had to wait like an idiot until I was an adult.”
Jiyu raised her head and glared at him.
But she had no answer.
The truth was that she had sold herself for a hundred thousand dollars to her childhood friend and her employer’s son.
Silently, she bit her lip.
Hunter walked over to the desk, wrenched open a drawer, and pulled out a checkbook. He scrawled down the amount, signed his name, and tore out the check with a sharp rip.
Holding it between his index and middle fingers, he approached her.
He looked down at her with cold blue eyes filled with contempt, a mocking smile curving his lips.
“If I’d known it wasn’t your heart that wasn’t ready, but your price, I wouldn’t have held back and waited like a fool. Take it.”
Her hands trembling, Jiyu took the check from between his fingers.
This is it.
Her ears burned and throbbed. Cold sweat trickled down her spine.
Misery and relief crashed together inside her.
She was an adult now. Old enough to understand that she had to bear the consequences of her own decisions.
‘I’m truly glad I don’t love Hunter.’
Even without loving him, this was humiliating, painful, and heartbreaking. Had she actually been in love with him, she might have wanted to throw open the window and jump.
The impulse was not entirely absent even now.
‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to end everything than to keep living like this…?’
As she stared toward the window and sank into a numb abyss, Hunter’s voice seized her by the hair and dragged her violently back to the surface.
“Strip.”
Jiyu froze and searched Hunter’s face.
He looked indifferent, almost bored. She could not read a single emotion in his expression.
“N-now? H-here?”
Her voice emerged strangled and unsteady.
His parents and younger sister were sleeping on the same floor.
Hunter pointed at the check in her hand.
“You already took the money. The condition was ‘whenever I want’ for four years, wasn’t it?”
Only then did the full weight of what she had done come crashing down on her.
Now that she had accepted the money, she no longer had the right to refuse anything Hunter demanded.
With a loud swish, he flung the curtains open.
In the center of the slightly elevated bedroom area stood a California king-size bed. Hunter dropped heavily onto its edge and jerked his chin toward her.
“What are you waiting for?”
Had Hunter ever looked at me that way before?
The contempt in his eyes, the way he regarded her as something worthless, made the bridge of her nose sting.
Head bowed, Jiyu walked toward the bed, repeating the words to herself.
‘Shame is a luxury too.’