Karina's Second Session

The dream was formless and warm, a dark sea of contentment. Julian floated in it, anchored by the slight weight on his chest, the even puff of breath against his skin. There was no boundary between asleep and awake, only a profound, animal peace. He didn’t stir, didn’t dream in narratives. He simply was.

The knock was a distant, polite intrusion, a sound from another universe. It didn’t belong. He ignored it, nuzzling deeper into the warmth.

Then came the soft, definitive click of the door latch.

Adrenaline, cold and razor-sharp, sheared through the warm haze. His eyes flew open. The door. He’d never locked it. Ningning had leapt into his arms the second it closed, and in the feverish collapse that followed, security had been the last thing on his mind.

Footsteps. Light, familiar. The scent of the room—sex, sweat, spent release—hit him anew, not as an aroma of satisfaction but as the blatant, damning evidence of a crime scene.

“Doc?”

Karina’s voice. Curious, probing.

He was frozen, a rabbit in a snare. He lay on his back on the therapy bed, a thin blanket draped over his hips and the sleeping form curled into his side. Ningning’s long, raven hair was fanned across his arm and chest, her face tucked against his ribcage, utterly lost to the world. Julian’s mind screamed at his muscles to move, to cover, to explain, but his body was leaden with dread.

The footsteps came closer, stopping halfway between the door and the bed. He could see her in his peripheral vision, a silhouette in the afternoon light bleeding through the blinds. She was in her off-duty warrior gear: a black halter bodysuit with sheer mesh panels that he knew clung to every curve, paired with utilitarian camouflage cargo pants. She looked like she’d come from a covert op, not a dorm room.

“Sorry to disturb you, but I can’t find Ningning anywhere. She left early, left her phone in the practice room locker. She had a session this morning, so I thought…” Her voice trailed off.

The sequence of her discovery played out in the terrible, silent theater of his mind. He watched her eyes, sharp and intelligent, scan the room. First, the discarded clothes on the floor—the turquoise top, the denim skirt, a tangle of white lace, his own trousers in a heap. Then, her nostrils would flare slightly, taking in the pungent, unmistakable musk that hung in the air—sweet female arousal, salt, and the earthy tang of his own release. Finally, her gaze would land on the bed, on the two of them tangled together, on the sleep-softened face of her maknae peeking from the blanket.

Her eyes met his. In that suspended second, he saw the entire galaxy of her understanding collapse into a single, dark point. There was no shock, no gasp. Her expression didn’t crumple into hurt or outrage. It simply… solidified. It became an unreadable mask of polished obsidian, reflecting back his own guilty paralysis. No anger yet, just a terrible, absolute comprehension.

Then, without a word, she turned on her heel. Her footsteps were measured, quiet, as she walked back to the door. She pulled it open, stepped through, and closed it behind her with a soft, final thud.

The sound was a gunshot in the silent room.

Fuck. Shit. FUCK.

The thoughts came in a staccato burst of pure panic. He’d ruined everything. His job, his career, his freedom. He was going to be arrested, charged, paraded in the tabloids. Aespa’s Therapist in Sex Scandal. He’d be a footnote in their legacy, the predator who preyed on the nation’s sweethearts. And Ningning… Winter… Giselle… Karina. Their careers would be incinerated in the conflagration of his disgrace. What the fuck was I thinking?

He forced a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs, then another. The instinct to flee was overwhelming, but he was pinned by the sleeping girl in his arms. He looked down. Ningning’s face was the picture of peaceful oblivion, a slight smile on her parted lips, a tiny thread of drool at the corner. A profound, gut-wrenching wave of protectiveness warred with his terror. He had done this to her. He had brought this risk to her doorstep.

His eyes flicked to the wall clock. 2:32 PM. They’d been asleep for over four hours. No wonder Karina was looking. The world had moved on while they lay in their secreted cocoon.

He gently brushed her hair back from her forehead. “Babygirl,” he whispered, his voice rough with sleep and dread. “Ningning. Sweetheart, you need to wake up.”

Her eyelashes fluttered. She made a soft, protesting noise and burrowed closer.

“It’s past two in the afternoon,” he said, kissing her temple. “Your members are probably worried about you.”

The words “past two” acted like a stimulant. Her eyes flew open, blurry with sleep for only a second before sharpening into alarm. She bolted upright, the blanket falling to her waist, exposing her small, perfect breasts. “Omo!”

She moved with the frantic efficiency of an idol late for a schedule. She scrambled off the bed, scooped her clothes from the floor, and dressed in a whirlwind of limbs—panties, skirt, bra, top. She didn’t speak, her movements focused and swift. Julian watched from the bed, the tableau of her hurried preparation a stark contrast to the languid intimacy of just minutes before. The reality of the outside world crashed into their sanctuary, and she was answering its call.

Once dressed, she hurried back to the bed. She leaned down, her expression softening for a moment. “Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered, pressing a quick, hard kiss to his lips. “I had an amazing time.” Then, the pragmatism returned. “I can’t wait for our next season. I hope… I hope I’ll be ready to try more with you then.” Another kiss, short but deep, a promise and a plea. “I’m proud of you,” he managed to say, the words feeling hollow against the specter of what had just happened. “I’ll look forward to it.”

With a final, fleeting smile, she was gone, slipping out the door and leaving him alone in the scent of their sin.

The second the door closed, Julian was in motion. He surged off the bed, located his phone in the pocket of his discarded trousers. The screen lit up to reveal four missed calls from ‘Karina,’ the last one over an hour ago. His phone had been on silent since his first session that morning. Idiot. Careless, arrogant idiot.

He dressed mechanically, his fingers clumsy on the buttons of his shirt. He straightened the therapy bed, wiped down surfaces with a disinfectant cloth, bundled the used tissues into a bag. He erased the physical evidence with the cold precision of a man covering a murder. But the scent lingered. And the memory in Karina’s mind was now indelible.

Then, he paced. The luxurious office felt like a cell. His mind raced through scenarios, each more catastrophic than the last. Karina would go straight to the CEO. Security would be called. The police would arrive. He imagined the cold click of handcuffs, the glare of camera flashes at the precinct. He checked his phone compulsively. He stared at the door, expecting it to burst open at any moment.

But nothing happened. The silence stretched, thin and screaming. The anticipation of punishment became a torture in itself. Finally, defeated by the suspense, he sank into the chair behind his desk. There was no escaping the building’s security. There was only waiting for the axe to fall.

Two hours of glacial silence later, it came.

The knock was firm, authoritative, a stark contrast to Karina’s earlier tentative one. This was the knock of consequence. He straightened his tie, squared his shoulders. “Come in,” he said, his voice echoing with a false calm in the quiet room.

The door opened. It was Karina.

She stepped inside, alone. The sight of her, unaccompanied by CEO Kim or uniformed officers, was more unnerving than a raid. She closed the door behind her, and with a deliberate, quiet motion, turned the lock. The click was a death sentence.

She walked to his desk, her movements fluid and controlled. He could smell it now—the faint, sweet-sharp tang of soju on her breath. She’d been drinking. But she wasn’t drunk. If anything, the alcohol seemed to have distilled her fury into a colder, more potent compound. Her beautiful face was a calm mask, but her eyes were live wires, sparking with a contained, terrifying energy. This calm was far more frightening than any shout.

“You should be in a holding cell right now,” she said, her voice low and even. She didn’t sit. She stood over him, a prosecutor delivering a verdict. “I could walk out of this room, make one call, and your life would be over.”

Julian opened his mouth, but she cut him off with a slight lift of her hand.

“I’m not going to. Not because you don’t deserve it. But because the splash zone would destroy my girls.” She leaned forward, placing her palms flat on his desk. “So here is what is going to happen. You will submit your resignation to the company tonight. Effective immediately. You will cite personal reasons. You will leave Seoul. You will disappear. And if you ever come within a hundred kilometers of any member of Aespa again, I will burn my own career to the ground to make sure you spend the rest of your life in a box. Do you understand me?”

It was a clean, brutal solution. A surgical strike to remove the tumor. It spared the group. It even spared him, in a way. He felt a bizarre, hollow gratitude mixed with the shame.

“Karina, please,” he said, the clinical ‘Miss Jimin’ dying on his lips. “Just let me explain.”

“Explain?” The calm shattered. The word was a whip-crack. She straightened up, her composure fracturing into visible, trembling rage. “Explain what? Explain why you’re using your position to take advantage of emotionally vulnerable girls? Explain why you were naked in bed with my maknae? Or should we start with the pills, Doctor? Are those little candies you hand out aphrodisiacs? Is that your secret? Or are you not even a real psychologist? Just a fucking con artist with a nice office and a line of shit?”

Her voice had risen, each question a lash. This was the fury he’d expected, the maternal lioness ready to tear out his throat.

“Five minutes,” he said, holding her incendiary gaze. “Give me five minutes to explain. Not to justify. To explain. After that, if you want to call the police, I won’t stop you. I’ll even dial the number for you. But hear me out. For their sakes, if not for mine.”

She glared at him, her chest rising and falling rapidly. The soju and fury warred with the ruthless pragmatism that made her a leader. Finally, with a sound of disgust, she yanked the client chair back and sat down, crossing her legs. She looked like a queen holding court over a traitor. “Talk.”

He took a breath, choosing his words like a man crossing a minefield. “First. I have not had sexual intercourse with any of the members. Not yet. What we have engaged in… are other forms of intimacy. I won’t detail them. That breaks confidentiality, and despite what you now believe, I do care about that boundary. I care about them.”

She let out a sharp, derisive laugh but said nothing.

“Second,” he continued, leaning forward, his elbows on the desk. “The problems each of the girls brought here—Winter’s perfectionism, Giselle’s dissociation, Ningning’s regression, your own… pressurized altruism—are real and complex. But at their core, beneath the layers of trauma and expectation, is a simple, human deficit: a profound deprivation of safe, consensual, physical touch. Of intimacy that isn’t transactional or performative. My methods are… unorthodox. They violate every ethical code ever written. I know that. But I believe, with a certainty that frightens me sometimes, that for them, in this gilded cage, it is the right treatment. The only treatment that reaches the root.”

He watched her face, seeing the anger momentarily displaced by clinical curiosity. The leader assessing a threat, the gamer analyzing a new rule set.

“No one was forced. At every step, there was choice. The pills,” he said, gesturing to the small bottle in his desk drawer, “are a mild, non-habit-forming anxiolytic blended with a hormone stabilizer. They lower inhibition by reducing anxiety, not by inducing artificial desire. The desire… that’s all them. It’s been there, buried and starving. You know it has. You felt it yourself.”

He saw a flicker in her eyes, a memory of her own surrender in this room, of the power she found in submission.

“They can’t date. They can’t seek out partners. The risk is existential. So they found an outlet. With me. A controlled, confidential environment. And it’s not just physical release, Karina. Look at Winter. Her vocals have never been stronger. Look at Ningning’s face when she left here today. You saw Giselle's performance getting better. They are healing. They are becoming stronger, more whole versions of themselves. Is my method dangerous? Reckless? Yes. But is it working? You’ve seen the evidence.”