“Count.”
No sooner had those words ended than a burning sensation seared through his buttocks. Geun-yeong, who instinctively curled up and twisted his body, squeezed out the humiliating number through his lips buried in the sheet.
“One.”
Once again, a pain like fire dropping down fell upon him.
“Two.”
Again came the sharp sound, and a tingling pain shot up his spine.
“If I were to hit you with a cane,”
Though his tone was monotonous and static, the sound of striking the buttocks became sharper than before.
“Three.”
“That, huff! would not be love.”
Seokhun was hitting so hard that he had to put in effort before bringing his hand down. A man who knew how to properly administer punishment was concentrating on hitting precisely the same spot. Again, before the tingling sensation could fade, a pain that made his hair stand on end fell upon the already sensitive skin.
“Ugh… five.”
“When I hit your buttocks, my hand hurts too!”
“Six.”
“This! I’m hitting you because I love you! Hnngh!”
It was a pain like setting fire. Geun-yeong, who shuddered without realizing it, clenched his teeth. He also squeezed his eyes shut.
“Count!”
“Se…ven.”
Geun-yeong counted to the end through gritted teeth, even as he was being crushed.
After finishing the ten lashes, Seokhun rummaged through the gray box. He took out a metal rod with some weight to it and extended it. It was another limb of the man who claimed to hit hard enough to hurt his own hand because he loved him.
Geun-yeong’s eyes widened as he tilted his head further and twisted his pupils to see what the man had taken out. Above his finely trembling pupils, not shame but fear now settled. Holding the rod in one hand and firmly gripping one of Geun-yeong’s thighs with the other to hold it in place, the man said:
“Keep your head straight and close your mouth.”
So as not to bite your tongue, of course.
As instructed, Geun-yeong straightened his head, which had been sharply tilted. He buried his face in the sheet and firmly closed his mouth. His body, which knew well the extreme pain of being hit with that thing, began to react first. His heart began to beat rapidly enough to cause strain. His breathing quickened. When the sound of the solid metal cutting through the air hit his ears first, his eyes automatically squeezed shut. At the same time, his severely quickened breathing had to stop.
* * *
Toward the end of the beating, the rod striking his thighs felt cold. With each pass of the rod that seemed to freeze the flesh and tear off a few chunks of frozen flesh, his entire body would cool and goosebumps would rise. Followed by cold sweat running down. Geun-yeong was beaten almost to the point of fainting from the shock of the intense pain.
When the sounds of exertion, groaning, the rod cutting through the air, and the striking of tender flesh all stopped, only the low rumbling sound of the air purifier filled the now quiet room.
The hair of the man kneeling with his buttocks raised was soaked. Cold sweat beaded on his naked body.
On his left buttock were ten handprints, but they looked like one large red hand had struck it. And below that, on his thigh, were several red lines. They were sharp as if drawn with a red pen against a ruler. Now they were swollen and a vivid red, but by tomorrow morning, they would start to bruise yellow and blue.
Ji Seokhun spread ointment over them. That too was always kept in the gray box. Though it was medicine applied in hopes that it wouldn’t get infected and wouldn’t hurt much during the night, to Geun-yeong, who was still in the humiliating position of having his face buried in the bed with his hands tied behind his back, it felt like an emetic.
While spreading the thick ointment on the skin that was so severely swollen that heat could be felt at the fingertips just by lightly touching it, the man asked:
“Who did you meet?”
“……”
“Do you want me to search through all the hospital CCTV?”
Haah… Geun-yeong exhaled a hot sigh onto the sheet where his lips were buried. And he struggled between continuing to lie and telling the truth. It seemed like it would be the same either way.
The man, who saw right through Geun-yeong, said with a low laugh:
“If you’re going to receive the same punishment anyway, it’s better to at least get it off your chest.”
That’s true…
The voice, now stripped of laughter, asked again:
“Where did you go?”
After swallowing the saliva that naturally pooled while keeping his face down, Geun-yeong, with a face that had given up everything, said:
“…I went to general surgery.”
“Why?”
“…Because a man named… Kyung… Jiho… was hospitalized.”
The moment that name was spoken, the hand spreading ointment on his thigh stopped. In that moment, it felt like Geun-yeong’s heart stopped as well.
When he first came to this house, Geun-yeong was under the illusion that he was being normally loved by his adoptive father. Back then, when he thought it was love when the man’s hands pulled him close on the wide bed in the too-large room so he wouldn’t be scared, when they touched various parts of his body, he had mentioned on the bed that there had been a hyung who had been kind to him, and that he wanted to meet him. Then the man’s eyes suddenly turned cold, and Geun-yeong, unable to forget those eyes, didn’t bring up such things for a while after that.
On his tenth birthday, as he was salivating at the cake that was immediately taken away after the candles were lit, blown out, and removed, the man asked if there was a gift he wanted. After hesitating for a moment, afraid that the man’s eyes would turn cold, he finally said he wanted to meet that hyung. From that day on, severe beatings began.
As he grew up and was able to use the internet, he searched for that name a few times. But on such days, the man who visited his room without fail would torture him under the guise of punishment. At those times, the intensity of the beating was considerably more severe than usual.
As he wiped away the blood that had seeped out and applied ointment to the swollen areas, he told him to forget everything from the past. Such incidents continued to repeat until he realized that those words weren’t literally telling him to forget the memories from the orphanage, but rather a threat to stop looking for that boy.
The man who had paused his hand on the thigh asked again.
“Yes. And then?”
“…It wasn’t him. It was someone else.”
Just because that man wasn’t the boy from back then didn’t change the fact that he had been searching for that boy. The man firmly gripped his buttocks with both hands and spread them apart, an area that stung sharply even with the slightest touch.
What was drawn on his face, which had momentarily crumpled from pain, was resignation. To someone showing no signs of resistance, a long-winded explanation of the justification for his actions followed.
“Our Geun-yeong has too many distracting thoughts, so I think I need to make it hurt a bit today. You’re even spacing out while studying. To snap out of it, you need some intense discipline.”
The dry finger with just a bit of thick ointment on it penetrated without warning.
“Ugh!”
Geun-yeong lowered his waist and twisted his hips. It was instinctive, as his behind was raw and painful from the rough penetration. But the man showed no mercy. A burning pain came down on his buttocks with a sound like tearing raw skin. Knowing well the meaning of the punishment just administered, Geun-yeong raised his waist again and lifted his buttocks.
“Geun-yeong, our Geun-yeong, Daddy,”
Between the sounds of the man manipulating himself in his hand to get erect, his voice trembled with arousal.
“Loves you, so much, you know that? Geun-yeong, right? Hnngh!”
“Uugh!”
With a rough insertion without warning, what the man called “discipline” began.
* * *
There was a puppy raised while chained to a small radio. Even after growing into an adult dog, it couldn’t move that small radio, they say.
After finishing the sexual act—no, the discipline—which was longer and considerably rougher than usual, using tools and violence, the man reinserted the insulin pump into Geun-yeong’s abdomen, carefully attached the shield, and left words of affection. Everything was because he loved him, wanted to keep him healthy, wanted to save him.
Once, Geun-yeong had desperately wanted to live, so he couldn’t refuse Ji Seokhun. And now, he didn’t refuse because he didn’t particularly want to live. Whatever the reason, Geun-yeong didn’t move the radio tied to his leg.
Finally alone in the room. He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Since it was distressing to have many afterimages appear when he closed his eyes, Geun-yeong had a habit of looking at the ceiling until just before falling asleep.
His buttocks and thighs, which had received dozens more strikes after the ten he had agreed to as punishment, were stinging. Every so often, a burning pain would spread, making it difficult to fall asleep. His lower parts, where various instruments and the man’s genitals had entered, throbbed and stung. His head, which had been filled with blood from being in a prone position for quite some time, continued to feel dizzy. His wrists, which had been tied up the entire time, were also raw and painful where the skin had peeled off.
Today, there was pain and discomfort in various parts of his body, so no other thoughts came to mind. Because of that, his mind was rather peaceful.
While briefly wondering if he would become a masochist who begs to be hit harder and hurt more, he tried to raise one knee but had to put it back down due to the pain in his thigh, causing a severe pain below. Thanks to that, even the thought about becoming a masochist disappeared.
Letting out a groan that no one could hear, Geun-yeong enjoyed the sudden calmness within. Thinking about the pain that moved from place to place, he waited without moving until the pain subsided.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
