“Or should I just……”
Kyung Jiho, who noticed the meaning of what the fidgeting guy was trying to ask with difficulty, clicked his tongue, “tsk,” and then said:
“Forget it. He’s already ejaculated all over your face too, so.”
The kit in the hand of the man who was constantly muttering curses like “Not even a dog in heat, fuck, ejaculating anywhere and everywhere, that son of a bitch,” was directed toward Geun-yeong’s face. He dabbed and swirled around the semen that was stuck and tangled between the right forehead and hair, then put it in the kit and sealed it.
It was essentially improper and shouldn’t be done, but it didn’t matter. As long as we get to Seoul, it doesn’t matter how we get there. There was no need to give another wound to the guy who was lying there like an injured puppy after being severely beaten and hurt, under the pretext of verifying the damage. Above all, it would have already been captured on camera, so there was no need.
Ah.
Speaking of cameras, there was something that came to mind. Kyung Jiho stood up with the kit and headed back to the door. While handing the kit over to forensics, he said to Lee Dongjae:
“Delete the camera footage of this room from 23:55. Earlier you bastard, you were throwing that guy on the floor and stuff, that’s excessive force.”
Geun-yeong, who knew what the man was trying to delete, tried to smile, but his tongue hurt, his lips hurt, and his whole left face hurt, so he stopped. Actually, the pain was just an excuse. He didn’t want to smile.
Hearing the man close the door and return, he asked what he had been wanting to ask all along:
“Um… do I really not have… diabetes?”
“Probably not. What you’ve been wearing all this time was definitely physiological saline. Let’s get you properly tested.”
While answering, Kyung Jiho picked up Geun-yeong’s clothes from the floor and placed them beside him. Then he knelt on one knee in front of Geun-yeong again. After staring at the face that was beyond words, he sighed deeply again and looked around. After looking here and there, he cursed again.
“Shit.”
Geun-yeong felt sorry and apologetic for creating a situation where curses kept coming out of the man’s mouth. And now he was curious, why did he curse, what was he looking for?
The man who had stopped looking around grabbed the hem of the shirt he was wearing and lifted it. At first, Geun-yeong didn’t understand why the man was showing his stomach and approaching. But his curiosity was quickly resolved. The man, unable to find something to wipe with, was using his own clothes to wipe the semen stuck to Geun-yeong’s forehead and hair.
His relatively intact right eye widened, then contorted. The man’s clothes were already soiled, and the opportunity to tell him that there were tissues in the wooden box on the table had already passed.
Through his eyes that were becoming moist, Geun-yeong could see the man’s stomach. A firm-looking stomach, crossed by a black dragon. It was a symbol of justice that had come from not sparing his body while trying to catch violent criminals. This was why he had mistakenly thought the man was a gangster. He had made such a misunderstanding, not knowing that he was a warm man who didn’t mind his own clothes getting dirty and could even wipe the dirtiest and most disgusting thing in the world.
Geun-yeong liked this man. He liked him so much. He had been liking him so much. But now he couldn’t like him anymore. It was all over.
Tears of sadness and regret began to fall from Geun-yeong’s eyes. He didn’t want to cry, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t stop the tears that kept coming. Still, he tried hard and struggled to hold back without making a sound, but it was impossible. He tried to clench his painful face and keep his mouth shut tightly, but it didn’t work. Something uncontrollable was triggered. He couldn’t stop the welling sobs. After trying to hold back the sobs escaping through his mouth with hiccups, they finally burst out. Geun-yeong ended up crying his heart out.
The man, who now had to wipe tears rather than the soiled face, had to swallow another curse, this time inwardly.
Damn it…
There was a limit to wiping the tears that were flowing like a burst dam with clothes and hands. Kyung Jiho let go of his shirt hem that he had been holding. With that hand, he grabbed the back of the head of the guy who was wailing and pulled him close. He embraced him.
Ji Geun-yeong buried his face in Kyung Jiho’s stomach and cried endlessly.
He cried because he was indignant about the 18 years he had lived a hellish life thinking he had an incurable disease. He cried because he was sad and regretful that although he had lived like a dog, even dirtily, wanting to meet this man, thanks to living that way, thanks to living so dirtily, he could no longer like the man he had finally just met. He kept crying.
For one person, it was a night of rejection that ended as soon as he realized his feelings. And for the other person, it was a night when apology and pity turned into affection. Such a night was passing.
The scene outside, where the pitiful sound of a man wailing in indignation over irreversible years had climbed over the windowsill and leaked out, was quite different from 30 minutes ago.
Medical support teams that had arrived belatedly with sirens blaring were moving with busy steps. Reporters who had arrived at the scene one step ahead of them were moving their hands even faster. The curiosity of the noble residents living in the neighborhood that had been empty due to its tranquility was being turned on one by one.
* * *
His own clothes would clearly be too big. Kyung Jiho opened the closet and gathered spare clothes. The guy sitting on the edge of the bed after completing medical treatment was silent. While his belongings were being packed, he kept looking at the floor.
During the period when he had kept him at home for a few days, Kyung Jiho knew that the guy had frequently been stealing glances at him. With his professionally wide field of vision, he kept seeing the guy who behaved like a gerbil coming out to look around and then hiding back. Even when he deliberately turned his head slowly, the guy couldn’t properly avoid it, and Kyung Jiho had seen him getting startled several times when their eyes met. Whether it was simple curiosity toward a stranger suddenly living together or fear of him, it was fresh and cute regardless. It was interesting. It was definitely not bad.
But now, the guy sitting so quietly that it was hard to tell if he was breathing properly kept looking only at the floor. His gaze didn’t follow Kyung Jiho, who was moving around packing belongings, even once.
It felt somewhat disappointing, and also worrying. The guy seemed as if something inside him had either unraveled or broken.
It’s not that he didn’t understand why he was like this. The reality that he had been bound to his whole life was an illusion and a lie—this fact wouldn’t be easy to accept. Those long years, not just one or two, would feel wrongful and indignant.
If it had been him, he would have harmed that person. At the moment he found out he had been deceived, he would have strangled him.
But the guy had endured the momentary anger and created a situation where that person would properly pay for his crimes. It was something that required tremendous self-control and courage.
Knowing this, he still got angry. Having seen the guy with his face battered and a penis in his mouth, he couldn’t hold back the fury that rose inside him. In the end, he had shouted at him, asking why he was so foolish.
But the guy was absolutely not foolish. What he had shown was patience and courage that would have been impossible for an ordinary person.
Anyway, it was all over. Unless something unexpected happened, that person would pay for his crimes. And Ji Geun-yeong would have to live a new life from now on.
There were many things he had to give up the moment he decided to punish that person. So it’s true that the future is uncertain. But despite this, Ji Geun-yeong chose freedom. He hoped that the guy would let go of any lingering attachment to the things he had given up in exchange for freedom and adapt to his new life as soon as possible. He would help him do so as much as possible.
How the guy was feeling right now would be worlds apart from intellectually understanding it from someone else’s perspective. Kyung Jiho abandoned the attempt to predict the guy’s feelings. No one but the guy himself knew how he was feeling right now.
He didn’t ask useless questions like what clothes to take, which would be utterly unimportant to the guy right now. Silently moving his hands, he filled a Boston bag with clothes and underwear. Before closing the zipper, he asked one last thing:
“Anything else you need to take?”
He asked hoping that there would be some lingering attachment to the things he had to give up after leaving this room, that the guy hadn’t let go of everything and become completely empty.
But Ji Geun-yeong only shook his head while looking at the empty floor.
Lee Dongjae was assigned to handle the suspect’s interrogation and writing the report. Judging by the way Kyung Jiho was glaring at the suspect, it seemed like he might leave the report half-done and end up dealing with a corpse instead. So unlike usual, the team leader stepped in to reassign the tasks. It’s not that Lee Dongjae was the type to treat suspects gently, but he would be somewhat better than Kyung Jiho.
And Kyung Jiho was put in charge of protective measures for the victim. The nurse from the medical support team recommended hospitalization for mental stabilization and treatment of contusions and abrasions, but Ji Geun-yeong shook his head in refusal. He didn’t want to go to a hospital full of things he had given up.
If hospitalization wasn’t necessary, there were usually designated places for victims rescued from familial abuse. There was the “Home for Domestic Violence Victims” and the “Shelter for Youth in Crisis.” However, Ji Geun-yeong couldn’t go to any of these places. He was neither a woman or child who typically stayed at the home for domestic violence victims, nor was he a youth.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
