But he couldn’t think of what to ask for. After being beaten with a wooden rod until it broke when he was young because he asked to meet someone, he had never asked for anything. Perhaps the only unprecedented request was when he asked for a laptop with the intention of preparing money to leave this house when the man started talking nonsense about being lovers. At that time, the man had looked quite excited. The outcome varied dramatically depending on the content of the request. What request could he make that would make the man leave the room without getting upset?
Should he say he was thirsty?
That made no sense. He was actually severely thirsty, and that’s why such a request came to mind, but he wasn’t in a position to ask the man to bring him water just because he was thirsty. Even if he was about to faint from dehydration, as long as he had the strength to crawl, it was easier to get it himself, and that’s how it had always been. But now the situation was a bit different, so he thought he might try asking. What should he say that wouldn’t sound strange?
My throat… is dry. Water… please. I’d like some… water… I want to drink.
While thinking that anything he said would sound strange and awkward, the sound from the device in the man’s hand stopped. Clear liquid formed at the end of the filled line. Geun-yeong tried to smell it, “hmm, hmm.” Either because it was too far away, or because it really was just saline solution, there was no smell.
The man rubbed Geun-yeong’s stomach with alcohol and then inserted the needle. After flinching his stomach at the stinging pain, he felt ridiculous. Somehow it seemed to hurt more than when his face was beaten to a pulp. He remembered the man who had been afraid of needles after being hospitalized with his stomach pierced by a sushi knife.
…I miss him.
Then Geun-yeong stiffened what was probably a vaguely stupid-looking face. This was no time for such thoughts. He felt urgent again. His mind, which had briefly wandered due to the needle, refocused on forming words for a request.
I’m thirsty. My legs hurt, could you bring me some wat–, would you, wouldn’t you, would you not, would–
Even after reconsidering, he practiced strange lines in his mind that still didn’t make sense. Meanwhile, the man who had connected the possibly fake medicine activated the pump. The man directly manipulating the device and attaching it to his stomach had all been captured on camera. Now all he had to do was make the report.
“Um… my throat…”
Geun-yeong tried to squeeze out words that just wouldn’t come. But his ant-like voice was drowned out by a slightly louder noise. It was the sound of something hitting something. To describe it more precisely, it was the sound of something heavy, about the size of a human head, hitting a wall. Followed by a scream.
Geun-yeong, who recognized whose voice it was, looked at the man. The man turned his head and looked at the gap in the open door.
“Damn it.”
The man, muttering a curse for his discomfort, got up from the bed.
After watching the man leave and the door gap narrow and disappear, Geun-yeong quickly got up.
* * *
With a short, intense sound, a warning window popped up on both their phones.
[Assault report received. Green Village Building A, Unit 7. Front door password: 9274]
“What? Already?”
An expression of disbelief appeared on Kyung Jiho’s face. And moving faster than his expression could form, his hands had already started the engine.
Lee Dongjae, who seemed to be in deep sleep but hadn’t closed his ears, jumped up and wiped his drool.
* * *
After making the report and hiding his phone again, Geun-yeong looked for his clothes scattered on the floor. He couldn’t stay like this. Well, everything had been recorded on video and would be seen soon anyway, but still, he didn’t want to face Detective Kyung in this state. There was pain in his pelvis with every step, as if the ligaments had been stretched from the man spreading him particularly severely today. Though limping, he moved quickly to find his pants and underwear under the table. After putting on his underwear, he had just put one leg into his pants when the door opened again.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to put on clothes—”
“Take them off. The treatment isn’t finished.”
“Can I at least wear pants—”
“Take them off.”
Geun-yeong had to put down the pants he had put one leg into.
“Take off your underwear too. It’s very worn out. How could it get so ragged like that? You’ve become a completely useless rag! What on earth have you been doing!”
Suddenly angry. Geun-yeong couldn’t accept what the man who was going back and forth with uncontrollable anger had just said. No matter what state his lower parts were in, to repeat, the one who made it that way was entirely the man who was now unable to control his anger.
Now Geun-yeong was angry too. The deception, abuse, assault, violence that had started from the moment he first set foot in this house—even if he endured all that, he couldn’t tolerate being prevented from putting on clothes right now. He was angry at the man who wouldn’t even let him wear pants, or at least underwear, before Detective Kyung arrived.
“What’s wrong with my lower parts?”
“They’re completely torn and ruined!”
“By whom?”
“By whom? Who else! It must be that bastard who slept with you for two days!”
“I told you I didn’t sleep with him.”
“Again, again, you’re lying!”
Seokhun raised his hand, and Geun-yeong instinctively shrank back. The moment he widened his unstable eyes and hunched his shoulders, it was already Seokhun’s victory. Lowering the hand he had raised behind his head, he asked:
“If you tell the truth, I’ll let it go.”
Geun-yeong, who had dropped his shrunken hands and straightened his bent back, lowered his head. He hated his body that shrank so pathetically at the mere raising of the man’s hand, when just a moment ago he had been angry about not being allowed to put on clothes. He felt ashamed and embarrassed. In the midst of this, he was questioning the truth of the man’s statement that he would let it go if Geun-yeong lied. If he really lied, if he just said he did it, would the man let him wear at least his underwear before Detective Kyung arrived?
“If I say I did… is that okay?”
“So you did it!”
“I’m asking if it’s okay if I say I did…”
“So you’re saying you did it!”
“If I say I did…”
“Are you playing games with me now!”
Ji Seokhun raised his hand again, and this time he couldn’t hold back. His hand flew again and struck Geun-yeong’s cheek. The fiercely flying palm scraped across the area that had already been hit dozens of times and was burst and torn. The head that had turned at a large angle slowly returned. Holding his painful cheek and lowering his head, tears fell copiously from Geun-yeong’s eyes.
Even though you’ll hit me whether I say I did it or not…
He hits me no matter what. In the end, I’ll be unable to even wear proper clothes in front of the man I like. Geun-yeong wept continuously, feeling miserable about his current situation where he couldn’t do anything as he pleased, about his life that had always been this way.
He had decided to end things with this man one way or another. Whether by killing the man and walking out as a murderer, being knocked unconscious by the man’s beatings and carried out, or even dying in the process and leaving that way, he was determined to leave.
Even when leaving, he wanted to leave wearing clothes, with his dirty body covered. It was now a matter of life or death. Geun-yeong gathered his courage. While streaming tears that he couldn’t possibly hold back, and shedding red water from his left eye that wouldn’t open properly, he spoke distinctly:
“You’re right. I did it. We did it from behind, with my mouth, with my hands. We did it ten or twenty times. That’s why my backside is like that. It’s all ragged.”
The man’s breathing, which had been rising and falling, with shoulders lifting and gradually deepening and quickening, stopped for a moment.
And then it started again. As if it were the first time, severe punishment began. New slaps rained down on the face that had already been reduced to a mess from enduring harsh punishment. Geun-yeong, who didn’t want to die completely naked, raised his hands to cover and block his face. He thought of the scissors in the gray box.
* * *
It was close to midnight and also a quiet neighborhood. Two men were moving quietly in front of the building at Green Village Building A, Unit 7.
He opened the door lock cover and pressed the password. 9274. The error tone sounded, and it didn’t open. The entrance password had been changed. It was different from the number Ji Geun-yeong knew and had given when he reported.
They had expected this.
Neither of the two men showed a surprised expression.
Kyung Jiho raised his index finger to point, and Lee Dongjae headed in that direction. They went around the building to the back of the house. As they had scoped out earlier, he stood in front of the large window of the veranda connected to the garden behind the villa, took out the hammer he had brought on his belt, and waited. If there were no instructions within the next 30 seconds, he would break it.
And Kyung Jiho reached out his arms to climb up the exterior wall to the lit second floor. He gripped the windowsill and rolled forcefully off the ground.
* * *
Geun-yeong, who had somehow been stripped naked again, was sitting on the floor leaning against the bed. He wasn’t just sitting there. He had the man’s penis in his mouth—the man whose solidly built-up anger needed release.
Since his head was resting against the bed mattress rather than the wall, the heavy rocking made him dizzy. His sharply bent neck was stiff. His torn lips and tongue stung. And the inside of his throat, being severely poked by the pointed penis, hurt. Dizzy, stiff, stinging, and painful. In conclusion, he felt like vomiting.
Should he vomit? Should he throw up?
He had made the report. He wondered how far Detective Kyung had come. When the detective arrived, it would be quite a sight to see him in this state, in this condition, and covered in vomit on top of it all.
It seemed he should hold back and not vomit. This was the person he had been waiting for all along, and he desperately hoped he would arrive soon. Even though he would see everything later anyway, he didn’t want to meet him while in this state. He wished they could meet when he had at least one piece of underwear on.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
