A rave. A reckoning. Beauty as curse.
[FLASHBACK - THE NIGHT BEFORE: AEWOL BEACH RESORT RAVE]
The Aewol Beach Resort was Jeju's worst-kept secret. By day, it was a pristine, upscale paradise of white sand beaches and infinity pools. By night - especially during festival season - it transformed into the K-entertainment industry's unofficial fuck palace. Young idols, actors, musicians, and the ultra-rich offspring of chaebols all descended on the place, and what happened there was supposed to stay there. But rumors always leaked. They always did.
The beach rave that night was in full swing - a pop-up EDM festival with a stage built right on the sand, strobe lights cutting through the darkness, and bass so heavy you could feel it in your chest. Tonight's headliners were BLACKPINK, and half the industry had shown up just to watch them own the stage. Four women in leather, mesh, and skin-baring confidence, moving like they'd conquered the world and were just deciding what to burn next. They were performing "Shut Down," and the message was unmistakable: We own this. Our bodies, our rules, our empire.
Ryujin watched from the edge of the crowd, dressed to kill in a neon green sports bra that barely contained her soft B-cups, black booty shorts that rode up high enough to show the curve of her ass, and chunky platform sneakers. Her hair was wild, her eyeliner smudged in that effortlessly cool way, and she radiated pure, chaotic energy. She'd learned half their choreography just from watching fancams - Yuna might be ITZY's self-proclaimed president of the Blink fan club, but Ryujin was absolutely the vice president, and she wore that shit like a badge of honor. This was what she understood. Female empowerment meant doing whatever the fuck you wanted - wearing what you wanted, fucking who you wanted, refusing to apologize for any of it. BLACKPINK had blazed the world on that philosophy, and Ryujin had internalized it like gospel.
What she missed - what she'd always missed - was the part where empowerment wasn't just about taking power; it was about knowing when you were giving it away.
Beside her, Karina looked like she'd been Photoshopped into reality. The aespa leader wore a white triangle bikini top under a sheer mesh crop top, paired with high-waisted white denim shorts so tight they might as well have been painted on. Her tits - those legendary, gravity-defying D-cups that had launched thousands of fan edits - were practically spilling out, and every man within a hundred-meter radius was openly staring.
"I hate this," Karina muttered, her arms instinctively crossing over her chest as they pushed through the crowd toward the dance floor. "Everyone's staring."
"Because you look like a goddamn cheat code come to life," Ryujin laughed, grabbing her wrist and pulling her forward. "Relax, Jimin-ah. You're supposed to be having fun. Forgetting about that dickhead ex of yours."
Karina's jaw tightened at the mention of Lee Jae-wook. Three months. It had been three months since they'd broken up, and she was still sexually frustrated as hell. He'd been the only guy who could actually make her cum - every other man since fell into one of two categories: the ones who finished in under a minute because touching her was too overwhelming, and the ones who lasted but fucked her like she was a conquest to brag about, not a woman to satisfy. Either way, she was left high, dry, and furious.
"I'm trying," Karina said through gritted teeth. "But I'm telling you, they're all the same. They either see me, get inside, and finish before I even feel anything, or they just use me for their own ego. No one actually gives a shit if I get off." She stopped, her voice tight. "It's fucking humiliating."
"Then stop fucking all these idol and celebrity boys," Ryujin replied, yelling over the bass, bouncing to the beat as they reached the edge of the mosh pit. "They're all overrated anyway. Get yourself a normal guy. Someone who'll actually put in effort instead of nutting the second they get a look at your tits."
Before Karina could respond, a group of guys pushed their way through the crowd - five of them, tall, athletic, clearly college-aged. The one in front, broad-shouldered with a jawline that could cut glass, locked eyes with Karina and his face lit up like he'd just won the lottery.
"Holy shit," he breathed, elbowing his buddy. "Is that Karina? From aespa?"
His friends immediately started whooping and shoving each other to get a better look, their eyes ping-ponging between Karina's face and her tits.
Karina felt it immediately - that familiar split. The part of her that wanted to roll her eyes and walk away. And the part that was so desperate, so frustrated, that even this stupid frat-boy attention felt like something.
Get yourself a normal guy.
Ryujin's advice rattled around her skull, reframing what she was seeing. These weren't idols. They weren't polished, media-trained, or starstruck into uselessness. They were just... guys. Normal guys. The kind Ryujin probably meant. The broad-shouldered one was still staring, and Karina felt her desperation sharpen into something like hope. Maybe Ryujin understood something she didn't. Maybe chaos was the only way forward.
Ryujin, meanwhile, had already mentally undressed all five of them. Where Karina saw "maybe this could work," Ryujin saw fresh meat - gym-rat bodies, that cocky frat-boy energy, and the kind of dumb confidence that made them easy to manipulate and even easier to ride into oblivion. She spotted a Yonsei University logo on one of their tank tops.
"Yonsei boys?" she called out, stepping forward with a grin, like a shark spotting blood in the water.
"Yeah!" the broad-shouldered one - Minjae, his name tag read - said, though his eyes were still glued to Karina. "We're here for the week. Frat trip. Are you really -"
"Yup, that's Karina. From aespa," Ryujin said, stepping between them like she owned the space. "And I'm Ryujin. From ITZY. You've heard of us, yeah?" The way she said it made it clear there was only one right answer, but she didn't wait for one anyway. "You boys wanna dance or just stand there looking stupid?"
"Fuck yes," one of them breathed, and just like that, Ryujin had them.
They merged into the mosh pit together, bodies pressed close in the chaos of bouncing, sweating humanity. The guys tried to get handsy with Karina - one reaching for her waist, another "accidentally" brushing against her ass - but she batted their hands away with icy precision, her expression haughty and untouchable even as the crowd threatened to swallow her whole.
But Ryujin caught it - the way Karina's lips twitched when one of them whispered something in her ear. The way she didn't move away when Minjae's hand lingered on her hip a second too long. She was testing the water. Seeing if any of them might be different.
In the strobing darkness, Karina looked like she was drowning in slow motion - still perfect, still untouchable, but something desperate flickering behind the mask every time the lights hit her face.
Ryujin, meanwhile, was in her element - moving with the crowd like she’d been born in strobe light and bass drops, every touch fueling her instead of draining her. She ground against all of them indiscriminately, her ass pressing into bulges, her hands wandering over abs and chests. The music was deafening, the crowd a writhing mass, and she let herself dissolve into it - no thoughts, just sensation. Time stretched and compressed. One second she was facing the stage, the next she was sandwiched between two bodies, the next she was spinning, laughing, alive in a way nothing else made her feel. The world reduced to heat and bass and skin and the beautiful, blissful emptiness of not having to be anything but this.
One of them - Jihoon, a lean swimmer type with sharp features - pulled her close, his hand sliding down to grip her ass through her shorts.
"Bold move," she whispered in his ear, her own hand reaching back to palm the growing bulge in his swim trunks.
"You're soaked," he groaned, and Ryujin realized his fingers had slipped under the leg of her shorts, finding her bare, unshaved pussy. No panties. Of course.
She grinned, pressing back harder, and in the chaos of the mosh pit - bodies everywhere, lights flashing, bass pounding through her chest - she reached down and yanked her shorts aside just enough to guide his cock to her entrance.
He was already hard, already leaking, and he slid into her with a grunt of shock and pleasure. Her pussy, thick-lipped and perpetually wet, swallowed him easily, and she felt every inch as he bottomed out.
"Fuck," Jihoon gasped, his other hand coming up to wrap around her throat - not squeezing, just holding.
She started grinding, fucking him standing up in the middle of the crowd, her back to his chest, his hand on her throat, his cock buried deep. The music drowned out everything else. No one around them seemed to notice - or if they did, they didn't care. This was Aewol. This was what happened here.
The whole thing felt liminal, dreamlike - like the rave had swallowed her whole and she was just another pulse inside its throat, another body in the crowd, another heartbeat in the chaos. Ryujin closed her eyes and let herself ride the wave.
Time warped. Sound blurred. Bodies weren’t people anymore; they were heat and motion and distraction, and she clung to that dissociation because it meant she didn’t have to feel anything else.
He lasted maybe ninety seconds before she felt him tense, his grip on her throat tightening as he came, flooding her with heat. She felt it leak down her thighs immediately, soaking into her shorts, but she just kept grinding, milking every last drop before pulling forward and letting his softening cock slip out.
Jihoon looked dazed, like he'd been hit by a truck. "Holy shit. That was -"
"Give me your number," Ryujin said, turning to face him with a wicked grin.
He fumbled for his phone with shaking hands.
Across the pit, Karina had watched the whole thing out of the corner of her eye. Karina watched, something twisting low in her stomach - envy, resentment, longing, she couldn’t tell.
Ryujin drowned so beautifully.
Karina only seemed to sink.
But part of her wondered what it would feel like to just... let go like that.
Later, after the rave had died down and they were walking back along the beach, Karina finally broke the silence.
"You fucked him." Not a question. "In the middle of everyone."
"Yup." Ryujin's grin was unrepentant. "Came in like a minute. It was great."
Karina shook her head, but there was a hint of something - not quite a smile, but close. "You're insane."
"And you're still worked up," Ryujin shot back. "Which is why you should come with me after dinner."
Karina stopped walking. "Where?"
"Jihoon gave me their address. They're staying like five villas down. Come on, Jimin-ah. Let's see if any of them can actually handle you."
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