“Ahhh!”
Seongyeom rolled to the side to avoid the flying knife.
The sharp blade glinted under the light. Seongyeom turned his prostrate body and pressed his hands against the floor tiles. He groped around, hoping to grab onto something, but not even a scrap of tissue caught on his fingertips.
Choi Seoldong, Kwon Yi Cheong, these bastards!
If your companion hasn’t come back for this long, shouldn’t you at least come check!
The man grabbed his injured ankle.
“Urgh…!”
“Don’t get any funny ideas.”
He felt like he was going to pass out. Seongyeom panted and leaned toward his injured ankle, feeling excruciating pain as if his joint was being torn off. He unconsciously grabbed the man’s hand that was holding the injured area.
“How cunning.”
The man deeply inhaled the scent stained with fear from Seongyeom, who brought his face to the man’s chest. It was his favorite smell.
“Does it hurt? Here?”
“Ahhh!”
The man squeezed the injured ankle tightly. Seongyeom trembled violently, unable to close his mouth that was pooling with saliva. Something—whether tears or sweat—ran down his cheeks.
“P-please spare me…!”
“I don’t want to?”
The man gleefully observed Seongyeom’s face. He didn’t know whose son this was, but it was obvious he’d been raised preciously. That made it all the more worthwhile to kill him. Blood began coursing through his entire body.
“Baby, look at me.”
The man lifted Seongyeom’s chin with the tip of his knife. The anxiously wavering gaze reached the man.
“My face, my voice, this smell here right now. You have to remember it for the rest of your life until you die, got it?”
As if he would do the same, the man carefully examined the beads of sweat rising on Seongyeom’s forehead, the flowing tears, and his tightly shut lower lip that trembled violently.
Seongyeom’s appearance reflected under the yellow light endlessly stimulated the man’s desire to conquer. The man smiled, showing his gold tooth.
“You have to answer.”
When the man urged him, Seongyeom hurriedly nodded. It was to avoid provoking him. In extreme fear, he wanted to lose consciousness right there. His injured ankle was gradually becoming numb too. Seongyeom slowly tried to pull his body back and escape from the man’s embrace.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The man firmly grabbed the squirming Seongyeom’s hair and yanked it.
“Urk…! Wh-what are you doing?!”
When the man suddenly tried to pull down his pants, Seongyeom grabbed them desperately. The cotton pants made a ripping sound under the strong grip. The moment he released his grip, the man backed away briefly.
Clack.
At that moment, the sunglasses fell to the bathroom floor.
“Hic…!”
One of the man’s pupils was clouded white. Seongyeom stiffened at the man’s face. He urgently checked the closed entrance door over his shoulder.
“Come here.”
No. This is, this is….
Seongyeom wiped his sweaty palms on his t-shirt. His increasingly rapid breathing reminded him of nightmares he’d buried deep. The narrow space also seemed to gradually press down on his windpipe, so Seongyeom gasped and gasped again.
Three years ago.
It was an unusually cold winter. Two days after high school graduation. That day, snow was falling heavily from the sky. Seongyeom was studying, planning to obtain language certifications that would be advantageous for employment before entering university.
Because Ms. Na saved on heating costs and never turned on the boiler except when sleeping, Seongyeom went to the restaurant with his mom. On days when it snowed heavily or was too cold, there were almost no group customers, so the floor-seated rooms were empty, and during those times he would lie down alone in the warm room and study.
That day too, he fell asleep while studying. When he opened his eyes at the sound of someone calling his name, the room was already filled with black smoke.
“Seongyeom!”
“Mom, Mom…!”
“Gyeom! My son is inside, someone please…!”
Seongyeom, who came to his senses at Ms. Na’s desperate cry, quickly looked for an escape route. The door side was already engulfed in flames, and the heat was tremendous even just approaching it.
‘I’m done for….’
Since the room was made by combining a small room from the neighboring shop, there was no other exit. Just as he was resigning himself to being burned to death helplessly, exactly one solution came to mind.
There was one small window right below the ceiling. If he stacked tables and somehow climbed up, he might be able to escape through that ventilation opening.
Trying not to breathe the toxic gas that had already descended to the top of his head, he pushed two tables against the wall and stretched his arms as far as possible, groping around. Perhaps because it was an old building, the ceiling was high, and after groping for a while, the window frame finally caught on his fingertips.
“Kheup! Kek, kehek! Heup…!”
He desperately stood on tiptoe while inhaling the thick smoke that had descended to his face. As soon as he managed to unlock it, cold air came in and he felt the thick smoke scatter outside a little.
“Kek, kehek! Over here, there’s someone here! Mom…!”
“Hey, Lee Seongyeom.”
As he called for his mom with the hope that he might survive, suddenly a spine-chillingly thin voice was heard from outside the window.
“Wh-who are you?! Please save me, there’s someone here…! Please…!”
“Hey, you’re really funny too.”
“…Seo Jinho?”
“When we broke up, I said it too, didn’t I? That I felt like I was going to die like this. That please, let’s not break up, just think of it as saving a person’s life once.”
“You crazy bastard….”
“But what did you say? That I wouldn’t die. That I should go live well on my own.”
“Fuck, that’s different from this! You son of a bitch!”
“How is it different? I died back then. The me now has been reborn. So you should experience it once too.”
Seongyeom’s ex-lover removed Seongyeom’s fingers one by one as they barely clung to the window frame. Eventually, Seongyeom, who slipped from the wall, reached out his hand again, but soon there was the sound of the window closing, followed by the sound of something being wedged onto the window frame. He had completely blocked the front of it so the window couldn’t be opened again.
“Hey, don’t close it. Don’t close it! Open it, fuck! Hey!”
Seongyeom, whose eyes were covered in tears, roughly wiped them and forced one eye open to look around. Like entering a sauna, the air was so hot it seemed to burn his skin, and breathing became increasingly difficult.
“Heuuk. Someone save me….”
He leaned his back against the lukewarm wall that was at least connected to the outside and breathed in what little oxygen remained. When even the hot air passing through his airways and filling his lungs felt agonizing, Seongyeom lost consciousness.
Smack—!
“Huk…!”
Seongyeom’s head snapped to the side as if it would break. The fishy taste of blood came from inside his cheek that burst from the slap. In pain as if his brain was shaking, forgetting even to breathe, Seongyeom opened his eyes wide and his mouth.
“It’s no fun if you pass out.”
Coming to his senses, Seongyeom quickly rolled his eyes to look around. He hoped it was a dream, but he was still lying prostrate on the dirty bathroom floor.
While unconscious, his hands and feet tied behind his back had lost all sensation. Each time he moved his broken ankle, throbbing pain rushed along his nerves to his knee.
“What exactly do you want from me…?!”
Seongyeom protested the injustice with pronunciation crushed against the floor. Absurdly, he became angry as the nightmare he’d finally forgotten resurfaced.
“Hehe, you’re bolder than you look.”
Worn-out boots with frayed toes approached close in front of his eyes, then rough hands grabbed his hair and lifted it up. With his hands and feet tied behind his back and even his neck being lifted, groaning sounds flowed from his mouth involuntarily.
“Uuh…!”
“Listen carefully, kid. If I kill you in front of Kwon Siwon, what do you think that bastard will do? Hm? Won’t Kwon Siwon, who acts all high and mighty alone, have his face twisted with fury? I absolutely must see that sight today.”
The eyes that had turned white rapidly scanned his pain-filled face as if admiring it. Gold Tooth shrugged his shoulders and giggled for a long while with a completely hoarse voice. Seongyeom clenched his teeth in frustration.
So, what does me dying have to do with making President angry…! As if that person would even care if I died. I’m just a tutor.
Just as the frustrated Seongyeom was about to demand answers from him.
Bang!
One rusted hinge couldn’t withstand the recoil and was torn off.
“Oh no…!”
“Urk!”
Gold Tooth hurriedly moved to safety and hid his body inside a stall, but Seongyeom had no choice but to take the flying stone fragments and dust.
While he curled up his entire body as much as possible and held his breath until the acrid stone dust cleared, something warm suddenly flowed from his forehead. It seemed his forehead had been cut by stone fragments that flew in all directions.
Ah, it stings… Fuck, such terrible luck….
Then, a familiar voice was heard.
“Is that Teacher?!”
“What, is that thing alive…?”
“Idiot! ‘That thing’? That’s Teacher! Would he be dead looking like that?!”
Ah, that’s Cheong and Seoldong’s voices…. Still, having been together for a few days, hearing the kids’ voices made him very happy. Seongyeom firmly suppressed the urge to cry and released a little strength from his curled-up body.
“Both of you, move aside.”
And this voice is…. As he tried to lift his head, an absurdly strong force grabbed the back of his head and his bent arm and forcibly pulled Seongyeom up. With that momentum, Seongyeom tried to balance on his injured ankle but felt like he would lose consciousness from the pain penetrating his nerves.
“Ahhh…!”
“Teacher Seongyeom!”
Gold Tooth, who had taken Seongyeom hostage, shouted.
“Everyone freeze!”
Siwon raised his hand to stop his subordinates’ movements. As if he hadn’t expected them to come this quickly, the man with gold teeth and cataracts in one eye showed signs of panic.
Siwon first pretended to follow Gold Tooth’s words while coldly examining Seongyeom’s condition with sharp eyes. Covered in dirt and dust, it was difficult to properly assess where and how badly he was injured, but judging by the dried blood on his face and the foot he couldn’t stand on properly, his condition didn’t look good.
