Four Men
Jeonga’s face twisted. The hand clenched in my hair tightened its grip.
“Aaaah!!!”
I had no choice but to scream. But Jeonga paid no attention to the sound. Instead she turned on Gangho, her own voice rising even angrier than mine.
“Ah, oppa, stay out of it. I’m gonna kill this bitch dead today.”
“I told you to stop!”
Gangho answered in the same flat tone, flicking a glance at me. The words only made things worse. Jeonga’s fury climbed higher; she shifted her grip and yanked harder. I couldn’t even think of fighting back—both hands were locked around the suppressant I was protecting. She roared at him.
“Oppa, what the hell is wrong with you?! Why’ve you been treating me like this lately? Am I not even allowed to mess with one damn ahjumma? I’m Oh Jeonga! Even if it’s you, you can’t pull this shit on me!”
She looked genuinely furious. Looking up, I saw her eyes trembling, her whole face flushed crimson as she glared at Gangho. And then… a strange sensation washed over me. I could almost feel her emotions. What was it? Jealousy? A sense of loss?
Something hard to name pressed against me. At the same time a thick, feminine scent flooded the air—impossible to describe properly. It felt like raw womanhood burning hot and unsatisfied, spilling out because it had nowhere to go. Weirdly physical, as if I could touch it.
What the hell? The feeling left me baffled, but I had no time to dwell on it. My scalp was being whipped back and forth in her fist, and the pain only grew as she poured more malice into the grip. I whimpered like a child.
“Aaaah! It hurts… please…”
“Ugh. Hey, just let go of her for now.”
To my surprise Gangho actually backed me up. It was like throwing oil on a fire. Jeonga wrenched my head all the way back. I screamed; she screamed louder.
“Ghk!”
“What are you trying to pull? Taking her side right in front of me? Huh? Answer me.”
“Ah, shit! Just stop already. Don’t cause a scene on the sales floor. You hearing me or not?”
Gangho shouted right back. My neck was bent so far my eyes were pointed at the ceiling; I thrashed helplessly. Tears pricked as I looked at him. I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but if you’re going to help, hurry the hell up. The pathetic thought rose unbidden.
Then, unexpectedly—without Gangho even laying a hand on her—Jeonga’s grip went slack.
“Ah… so that’s what you meant?”
“Huh?”
“As long as I don’t cause trouble inside the store, right? Just in here. Okay! Got it.”
“……”
When I managed to look at her face again, a chill ran through me. The strange sorrow I’d sensed earlier had flipped into something cold and vicious aimed straight at me. But at least she let go of my hair.
“Ugh! Cough, cough!”
My throat hurt from how hard she’d bent my neck; the coughing came on its own. Jeonga didn’t even glance back. She strolled out at a leisurely pace, brushing past Gangho and giving his arm a light tap as she went.
“I’ll do it your way, oppa. Yeah, you’re right. No point dirtying my hands here. I’ll take care of it myself. Thanks for stopping me.”
What… what the hell did that mean? I couldn’t make sense of it, yet the malice aimed at me was unmistakable. Gangho’s scowl deepened. He rubbed his forehead once, then looked at me. I flinched under the gaze, but I had no desire to thank him.
I still couldn’t forget what he’d done to me. And anyway, he and Jeonga were on the same side. When he caught the look I gave him, he simply turned and left without another word. The moment both of them were gone I finally exhaled in relief and sank to the floor.
But the sick feeling in my chest wouldn’t go away. Because—
“What do I do? The suppressant… it’s destroyed.”
The pill Jeonga had stepped on was powder scattered across the floor. Anyone else would have thought nothing of it and swept it away. To me every grain was precious. So I desperately scraped the powder up with my fingers and ate it. My stomach heaved.
It was crushed medicine stuck to a floor black with unknown grime and sticky filth. Just the smell was enough to make anyone vomit. I had no choice. I squeezed my eyes shut, stuck out my tongue, and licked the powder off the tiles, swallowing it down.
Truly, every day felt like discovering a new floor beneath the bottom. And the worst part was that this counted as “getting off lightly.” The fact that I was supposed to feel relieved and even glad about it only made me more wretched. So I had no idea.
I had no idea that, a few hours later, the same incident would lead to something I never saw coming.
“Hah… hah… hah…”
My lungs burned, but I couldn’t slow down. Through the dark, narrow alleys I forced my feet faster—almost running. The fear refused to leave. Why? Why was this happening again? It had been a decent day until now.
After the morning’s incident the afternoon had passed quietly. Jeonga hadn’t come around with her usual pointless harassment, and no one had dumped extra overtime on me the way they always did before a day off. For once I actually got to clock out on time and enjoy the start of my holiday.
Afraid someone might grab me, I hurried onto the road home. Walking away from the store, I felt a little of the tension ease. Only then did the day off start to feel real. Last week… after everything that happened, it had been the worst stretch of my life.
You’d think a person would be sick of it. But humans are sly creatures. Barely a week later I was already filing that day away as “the past,” and when the same hour rolled around again I was actually happy to have the day off. I sneered at myself for being pathetic, yet the good mood stayed.
So instead of heading straight back to an empty house, I thought maybe I’d do a little grocery shopping first. That was the exact moment.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
A chill raced down my spine. Footsteps—unmistakable—sounded behind me. What? This wasn’t a place people usually walked. Delinquents sometimes snuck in for a smoke, sure, but almost nobody used it as a through-route. That was exactly why I’d gotten used to coming and going alone in peace. Today felt different.
Someone… is following me?
Fear made me take a detour. The footsteps didn’t fade. If anything they drew closer. I deliberately slowed. The sound stopped with me. That settled it. Someone was hunting me.
I never knew it could feel like this for a woman—this pure, unimaginable terror.
In the old days I would have shrugged it off. Who’d bother mugging a skinny middle-aged guy with nothing worth stealing? Now the thought that rose unbidden was pure instinct: the nightmare from last week.
I’m going to get raped. No!
The memory of being raped by Gangho—helpless, screaming, broken—flared bright and immediate. The idea that it might happen again followed right on its heels. So I ran. Panic drove my legs. Behind me the footsteps sped up too.
“I have to get away. Use your head. Take the more complicated route…”
Luckily my brain hadn’t completely frozen. I forced myself to think. Best option: reach a main road. But this was an old factory district bleeding into abandoned houses—a full-blown slum. The busy streets were still far off.
Then I had to hide. Find some shadowed place they couldn’t follow. I sprinted through the maze of connected alleys. Breath tore at my throat, but stopping wasn’t an option. I needed people. And right then, like a hand of salvation, something appeared ahead.
“Excuse me! Wait a second!”
“Huh? Oh?”
Four men were walking along, glancing around. Ah—had I finally reached a street with passersby? Even if not, just seeing people made relief flood me. I ran straight to them, grabbed one man’s arm, gasping for air.
“Hah! Hah… please help me. Someone’s chasing me.”
“Ah, sure. But… hey! That’s her, right?”
I felt a flicker of unease. They weren’t on a main road after all—still another alley. And their faces… young, but rough around the edges. Still, a woman had suddenly appeared begging for help—
Haah. At least that part was true. They wouldn’t just ignore a woman in trouble. I let myself breathe. Then an unexpected exchange passed among them.
“Yeah, that’s her. Found her.”
“Whoa. We were looking all over and she walks right up to us.”
“What? What do you mean…”
A fresh chill hit me. What was this? The way they looked at me… it wasn’t right. Thick, greasy, vulgar. Disgust rose instantly. Then something caught my eye—one of them casually showing his phone to a friend. On the screen was my photo. Taken inside the store, by the look of it. Why… why did they have that? In that second I knew these weren’t ordinary people. I spun around.
“Ah, um… thank you for the help. I don’t think he’s following anymore. I’ll just be going. Huh?”
One of them caught my arm as I turned.
“Aww… noona, leaving so soon would be rude. It’s dangerous around here. You could scream and nobody’d come.”
“He’s right. So we’ll… escort you somewhere safe.”
“Ah, I’m fine. Home’s not far—I couldn’t impose like that. I’ll just—eek!”
I froze solid. Hands clamped onto my chest and waist. I couldn’t shake them off, because cold metal pressed against my cheek—a balisong knife resting right on my face. These… these bastards, what the hell?
The shock never made it out as a scream. The one holding the knife put his mouth to my ear and whispered.
“Don’t scream. And come along quietly.”
“Mph! Mmmph!”
I wanted to scream, but another hand was already clamped over my mouth. All four of them. Without understanding a thing I was dragged back into the very alley I’d just escaped. What… what the hell is going on?
I still didn’t know why it was happening, but I knew exactly what was about to happen. Because—
“Kyaaaaah!”
I screamed like a woman and hit the ground. But instead of checking the scrapes, my first instinct was to cover my chest. They’d ripped my shirt off and thrown it aside; the torn undershirt barely hid anything.
I lay there looking up at them, eyes wet, voice shaking.
“Why… why are you doing this to me?”
“Haa… ahjumma. Don’t hate us too much. We don’t actually want to do this either. You shouldn’t have poked that bitch’s temper so hard.”
“Dude, quit the act. You pull this shit every day even without Jeonga asking.”
“What’d you say, you retard? But… damn, today’s catch is better than I thought. Called her ahjumma, but she’s not total trash.”
They snickered and traded crude jokes. And from their talk I finally understood the reason. Jeonga? She put them up to this? Over something that small? Rage boiled up. Despair followed right behind it.
Right now I had zero ways to resist or stop whatever these guys were licking their lips to do to me. Ah… why do I keep forgetting? Misery never leaves me alone. It always finds a new floor beneath the bottom and drags me down.