J finally checked the boy’s condition thoroughly and precisely, then met the terror-filled eyes that had now completely given up resistance and were gasping for breath.
Anger suddenly rose in J’s eyes.
J, who gave a deeply respectful 90° bow to the man who helped him, immediately got in the car and started the engine.
Vroom.
J’s car carrying the boy hurriedly exited the hospital like that.
***
How are you feeling these days?
…Fortunately, the seizure symptoms have subsided. Recently, I’ve been sleeping fairly well too.
That’s good. I changed the medication a bit, and it contains more sedative components than before.
Try to eat all three meals a day as much as possible.
……….
Physical health comes first. Only then can mental illness also subside.
Yes… I’ll try my best.
It’ll be a bit painful, but shall we talk about that time again?
……….
Of course, this process may seem like an inappropriate treatment method to you as the patient. I fully understand that point.
But you mustn’t try to avoid it.
Recovery cannot be obtained from avoidance. You must confront the truth through collision and memory, and have the will to rebuild yourself.
Think of this place as where you shed all the darkness you’re carrying, Jeongmin-ssi.
……….
……Seongsaengnim.
I’ve been having dreams lately.
It’s really strange, isn’t it? After escaping from that hell, I never once had a dream. It was hell even up to the moment I fell asleep, but when I somehow barely managed to fall asleep, it was a sleep state like death.
But I’ve started having dreams.
Is this because of the newly prescribed medication…?
Symptoms regarding dreams are like a kind of self-awareness symptom.
Everyone dreams. On the other hand, when you escape from an extreme stress state or oppressed situation, your mental state also relaxes with the sensation of stiff muscles loosening.
Are you under stress again recently?
…It’s not because of that.
The content of that dream is so vivid… it dominates me for a long time even after I wake up.
What’s the content?
……….
So… can you tell me the content of that dream now?
There’s a wooden staircase with poorly fitted joints.
Old stairs that make an unpleasant friction sound that creaks even with the slightest step. They look grotesque, as if they’d collapse immediately if an adult man stepped on them.
I don’t know what’s there if you climb to the top of those stairs. The dream always starts with standing in front of the wooden stairs. I’ve never actually seen such stairs even once.
Are you saying you dream that always takes place in the same location?
Yes.
Then that’s certainly a meaningful dream.
So… what happens next?
I don’t stop even though I’m harboring fear.
It feels like I’m climbing those stairs regardless of my will, by some irresistible force.
Thinking is clear even in the dream. That’s a completely different part from dreams I had before.
I slowly climb the stairs.
One….
Two….
Three….
…….
………
………..Eleven.
Twelve.
And.
…………
When I climb to the top of the stairs, a man covered in blood is lying sideways.
Do you remember that man’s face?
…No.
He has no face, Seongsaengnim.
Strangely, only the face part is completely hidden in darkness and cannot be identified.
I plunge a knife into that man’s heart.
Toward someone I don’t know if they’re already dead… or still alive….
I take out a knife I don’t even know when I got and dig into the chest like mad. What people call “stabbing randomly.” Once… twice… three times. So many times I can’t count… until the other person’s skin is completely torn and turned into rags… until I myself am covered in a pool of blood like a yaksha, I stab and stab again like that.
And… lastly, I.
I cut off that person’s neck.
That neck is cut cleanly without any sense of incongruity every time.
No matter how much it’s a dream, it’s unrealistic. Too… cleanly.
…What happens after that?
……….
Do you wake up?
No.
Earlier I told you I couldn’t see the other person’s face, right?
Holding the severed head against my chest, I go back down those unpleasant wooden stairs.
At a speed similar to when I first climbed up….
I slowly descend, counting the stairs one by one.
And then I finally realize.
That I cut off my own head myself.
……….
That head I’m holding against my chest….
Was none other than my own head.
PM 1:20
After that commotion, the stillness that followed was rather eerily unrealistic, so the boy was blinking his eyes and anxiously following only J before him.
Min, who was dragged back to the hideout, had to endure J’s cold, silent anger with his entire body for a long time after that.
The boy, who barely gathered his body thrown away by J and lay on his side, rolled his eyes dominated entirely by fear while watching his mood.
The man’s eyes were heavily sunken with imposing murderous intent.
Only fierce anger floated in the coldly locked gaze that couldn’t find any emotional fluctuation even normally.
“Hnngh….”
He tried to move his lips hastily to spit out some excuse, but because the tape hadn’t been removed yet, he couldn’t get out any words.
“Were you trying to run away?”
There’s no sense of reality in the man’s monotone voice.
“You put on a show… to escape. Right?”
Thud thud.
The boy, who had been watching the large footsteps of the man approaching him, suddenly had a seizure.
Ugh.
Uuuugh.
There’s still no expression change in the eyes of the man looking down at the boy’s body suddenly writhing and convulsing all over.
He just watched with an indifferent gaze for a while, as if observing from afar, the pitiful boy’s body gasping for breath while curled up like an insect.
Soon bubbles spurted out from inside the mouth sealed with tape, and bloodshot veins stood erect in the eyes rolled back white. The boy twisted his entire body wrapped tightly in tape and let out incomprehensible screams. If left like this, he might die from the seizure.
Only then grasping the seriousness of the situation, J reached out and tore off the tape binding the boy’s body. He also removed the tape soaked with wet saliva from his face.
“Hnngh……!”
J, who quietly placed his finger on the respiratory tract of the boy trembling his lips and whispering something small, twisted one corner of his mouth strangely.
“You did a strip show and now you seem to be mistaken into thinking you’re a real showgirl.”
“Uuu…hnnn……”
The man who nimbly snatched the nape of the boy who was struggling in pain and continuously letting out low moans spoke in an ominous voice.
“Follow me, you bad bitch. If you did wrong, you have to be punished.”
The place he was dragged into by the man’s rough hands was the bedroom where beast-like intercourse took place every night.
As if a rampage had already occurred, Min already felt suffocated by the heat in the room filled with signs of steamy sex.
Since it had been barely a few minutes since the seizure subsided, the boy looked around the room with an anxious gaze. Even though he was violated by K and J alternately every night without getting tired, it felt unfamiliar like a place he was visiting for the first time.
What will happen again now?
What situation am I placed in again?
It was even surprising that even a handful of reason still resided in his brain. If it were an ordinary person, perhaps reason would have already been paralyzed and they would have gone crazy. Who would have thought that the years of living tenaciously with his grandmother from a young age after losing his parents would instill such strong will. The boy in his current state didn’t know whether to admire or curse this strong mental strength.
Everything is just confusing.
“Speak properly.”
J’s sharp command falls.
