A sleepless night later, Lily's first action after school was tucking the manga into her waistband before heading straight to Michelle's house. She hoped to return the comic and perhaps extract some information about Trevor's preferences.

To her surprise, Michelle broke down crying before Lily could even hand over the manga. Between sobs, Michelle explained she'd recently started dating an attractive guy just a year older than her who owned a bar. They'd met at a friend's birthday party a week ago.

Lily nodded silently, listening.

Michelle continued, explaining that his name was Trevor, and he had quite a history with women—many pursued him, many dated him, but the relationships always ended quickly. She thought playing hard-to-get would make him value her more, so she'd turned down several of his invitations with various excuses.

"You're such a prude! It was just a hookup!" Michelle exclaimed.

"Oh," Lily replied with sudden understanding. Despite Michelle's tears, she could still insult Lily—clearly this wasn't a complete tragedy.

"Everything was fine until two nights ago when he drove me home and asked me out again. I turned him down, hoping to string him along a bit longer, but then..." Michelle's voice broke. "Yesterday afternoon, right after dropping me off, he called and broke up with me!"

Lily watched her friend's heartbroken display, thinking that Trevor obviously just wanted sex and Michelle had miscalculated. She realized that when he came to buy cigarettes from her yesterday, he must have just dropped Michelle off, and seeing how naive Lily seemed, decided to break things off with Michelle and pursue her instead.

She felt foolish for believing he might have genuine feelings for her.

Lily waited until it was nearly time for school to find an excuse to leave. On her way out, she mentally counted—only two days until the weekend.

Saturday morning arrived, and Lily left home early with a small shoulder bag. She wore a thin tank top covered by a light cardigan and an extremely short skirt that barely reached the top of her thighs—a birthday gift from Michelle two years ago that she'd never worn because it was too revealing.

Of course, Michelle hadn't given it with pure intentions; she knew Lily wouldn't wear it and used it as another opportunity to tease her for being old-fashioned.

Throughout her life, Lily had always been the quiet, slightly slow-reacting good girl who seemed easy to bully. Michelle, being a year older, enjoyed picking on her occasionally, then comforting her afterward, always acting as though Lily understood nothing.

In reality, Lily understood everything perfectly. She simply chose not to make a fuss, believing these matters weren't worth fighting over.

But Trevor's situation was different.

When Lily finally found the standalone house she remembered, an hour and a half had passed since she'd left home. The midsummer sun blazed down at ten o'clock as she stood before the closed door, studying the black motorcycle parked nearby for a good two minutes before finally turning to knock.

Inside, Trevor was slouched on his couch watching porn. On screen, a fair-skinned, voluptuous actress knelt with her arms bound behind her back, servicing one male performer while another took her from behind.

Trevor, his jeans unzipped, lazily stroked himself while watching with diminishing interest. His member was considerably larger than the actor's, but his enthusiasm was clearly lacking.

He wasn't typically a morning person. The only reason he was awake so early pleasuring himself was pure frustration. Two days ago, he'd broken things off with Michelle because of that naive girl, but ended up with nothing to show for it except Michelle causing a scene at his bar, crying and making a fuss.

Encountering two difficult women in succession had completely killed his desire to find female company, leaving him reliant on porn these past couple of days.

While physical release was easy enough, the fire in his mind wouldn't be extinguished so easily, constantly reigniting. Especially whenever he recalled Lily's nervous downturned face, her small ears and exposed neck flushed pink, her eyes misty and lips trembling pitifully—those memories immediately stoked his desire.

Just thinking about her now, Trevor felt himself grow painfully hard. "Fuck!" he cursed, releasing his grip and sitting up. He reached for the remote beside him, intending to fast-forward to a more stimulating part.

Knock, knock, knock—not the sound from the video, but someone at his door.

Trevor frowned, glancing toward the window hidden behind heavy curtains.

Knock, knock, knock, knock—knock, knock, knock, knock—