The Dialectic of Master and Slave - Chapter 16
Jaha fled the scene after a hasty rinse, unable to play it cool like nothing had happened. The shame was suffocating, overwhelming. The urge to bite her tongue down hard enough to end it all felt almost irresistible.
Will he spread rumors?
He will, right?
How do I walk around holding my head up now?
Seeing the unfamiliar face, it was someone from a different living area. Except for washing times, the possibility of meeting him again wasn’t very high. However, they say words without feet travel a thousand miles. Though Jaha wasn’t the only female slave with black hair in the imperial city, it was only a matter of time before the subject of the scandal was discovered to be Jaha.
Felt like blood was drying up just imagining. Anger rose at her own foolishness and thoughtlessness.
Yoo Jaha, is your head just for decoration? Why do you bend over without a second thought? Over a fucking piece of soap. If you stood straight, this slime inside might not be so obvious, but when you bend over like that…
Self-tormenting rumination ultimately concluded that going to the wash was a mistake.
If she had just stayed quietly in her quarters, nothing would have happened. Of all the time, why go there at that moment? Was it just destined to go that way?
While walking mindlessly, she saw someone wearing noticeably luxurious clothes in the distance. Jaha lay flat on the ground. The body moved on its own before her mind could recognize the other as a noble.
Footsteps approached very close then distanced again. Jaha, who had been holding her breath, only then got up from the ground. Even amid the confusion, a subtle shock arose as the body that prostrated like Pavlov’s dog didn’t feel like their own.
Whenever the things she thought she would never get used to began to feel natural, one by one, Jaha couldn’t help but feel a sense of dissonance and bitterness.
It was a disguise for survival, but they say that if you act long enough, it becomes indistinguishable from the truth. Before that could happen, before the shell she had donned to protect herself could completely consume her, she wanted to return to Earth.
“No.”
The cause and effect were the opposite. Until the day she could return to Earth, she had to maintain her sense of self and not let this disguise devour her.
Jaha stared blankly at her palm.
I am human. Not a slave, not a beast, but a human with free will, just like them.
Remember. Even in this state, as long as you don’t forget that fact, Yoo Jaha, you will always remain human.
Slowly clenching and unclenching her fist, Jaha shifted her thoughts.
Rumors? Let them spread. So what? It’s a world I’ll leave behind someday anyway.
It would be mortifying to the point of death, but that’s all there is to it. No more, no less. She had no dignity or honor to protect in the first place. Those who needed to know what the Emperor had done to her already knew. What difference would one more scandal make?
No matter who mocked her, she could just steel her face and ignore them. After all, it wasn’t even her fault to begin with.
The only difference between them and Jaha was whether they had luck or not. Jaha had simply been unlucky, unable to avoid the natural disaster that was the Emperor. Even though they were in the same position—unable to utter a word and forced to offer their necks if the Emperor ordered them to die—it was absurd for them to throw stones at her.
The entire way back to her quarters, Jaha rationalized that it was nothing, that anyone in a similar situation would have no choice but to act as she did. If she didn’t think that way, she felt like she would be too ashamed to live.
Once she regained some composure through constant effort, a sensation she had forgotten began to creep up between her legs. Trying hard not to focus on the slime’s movements, Jaha lay down on her bedding.
The next day, Jaha gritted her teeth, sweating coldly, and headed to the library.
Her heated body had caused her to fall asleep briefly, only to wake up and fall asleep again repeatedly, and before she knew it, the morning sun had risen. Even though she had gone to bed early, it didn’t feel like she had slept at all. To make matters worse, her entire body ached as if she had been beaten.
When Lady Ranya saw her complexion, she suggested that Jaha could go back and rest if she was feeling unwell, but Jaha deliberately stayed in the library. She felt like she would focus more on the strange sensations if she were alone.
She spent as much time outside as possible, and when she returned to her quarters, her nights were filled with gasping and writhing. As the night deepened, her senses grew more sensitive, making it impossible for her to sleep comfortably even for a single day.
Jaha’s insides had long since transformed into a hot, sticky mess—the perfect environment for the slime. It had been continuously releasing sweet fluid, but the slime absorbed it all, so none of it spilled out.
